When asked on NBC’s Meet the Press how long US troops would be in Iraq after the expected US invasion, how much it would cost, and whether or not the military operation would be a cakewalk, Vice President Dick Cheney insists that “first of all, no decision’s been made yet to launch a military operation.” Addressing host Tim Russert’s question, he explains, “We clearly would have to stay for a long time,” and admits that it “could be very costly.” [Meet the Press, 9/8/2002; Daily Telegraph, 3/21/2005]

Vice President Cheney continues to argue his case for war with Iraq, this time during an appearance on PBS’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” “We know based on primarily intelligence reporting [that Saddam Hussein] is continuing to expand and improve his biological weapons capability both in terms of production and delivery systems; we know he is working once again on a nuclear program.” Cheney goes on to say that Congress would have to make a decision on whether to authorize an attack on Iraq without being able to see the evidence that Cheney says exists. To brief Congress—535 lawmakers—about such “highly classified” matters would invite leaks that would potentially compromise national security. Instead, lawmakers who do not sit on the respective intelligence committees will have to make their decisions based on the limited amount of information the White House chooses to share with them. [Savage, 2007, pp. 157, 357]

The White House Iraq Group (WHIG—see August 2002) launches its Iraq marketing campaign with a blitz of the Sunday morning talk shows. Vice President Dick Cheney appears on NBC (see September 8, 2002 and September 8, 2002), Secretary of State Colin Powell on Fox (see September 8, 2002), Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on CBS (see September 8, 2002), and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on CNN (see September 8, 2002). Rice is the first to use the characterization, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud” (see September 4, 2002), but President Bush and his senior officials repeat the phrase over and over in the following days. Author Craig Unger will note “Cheney’s most Machiavellian flourish” in having all four officials cite “evidence” of Iraq’s nuclear program, suspicious aluminum tubes, and attribute the information to the New York Times. Cheney and the others are referring to a story by the Times’ Judith Miller and Michael Gordon (see September 8, 2002) that Iraq had tried “to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes” that American experts believe could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. The story is attributed to “unnamed administration sources;” Miller and Gordon do not inform their readers that the story comes from Cheney’s office. In essence, Cheney planted disinformation in the New York Times, then cited the Times article to prove his contention. Gordon will later insist that he and Miller had to pry that story out of the administration, but Unger will note that it is hard to equate Gordon’s contention with four of the administration’s highest officials going on television simultaneously to spread the story and cite the Times article. Furthermore, because of the scheduling practices on the four networks, it appears that the four officials’ simultaneous appearances were arranged in advance. As the Times is the flagship newspaper of the US press, over 500 other newspapers and broadcast outlets pick up on the Times story and the officials’ appearances, giving the story tremendous visibility throughout the world. [Unger, 2007, pp. 252-254]

In another statement on NBC’s Meet the Press (see September 8, 2002, September 8, 2002, and September 8, 2002), Vice President Dick Cheney strongly implies that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks. “I’m not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11,” Cheney says. “I can’t say that.” As author Frank Rich will later write, “Then he made unspecific allegations suggesting exactly that.” Cheney specifically alludes to the allegation that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with Iraqi officials in Prague (see Late July 2002 and October 21, 2002). [Rich, 2006, pp. 59]

Judith Miller. [Source: Washington Post]Judith Miller and Michael Gordon of the New York Times report in a front page story that Iraq is trying to obtain materials to build a nuclear weapon. Citing unnamed senior administration officials, they break the story of the aluminum tubes that were confiscated in Jordan in July 2001 (see July 2001) and write that both “American intelligence experts” and top officials believe the tubes were meant to be used as centrifuge rotors in a nuclear enrichment program. “In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium,” reports the newspaper. “The diameter, thickness and other technical specifications of the aluminum tubes had persuaded American intelligence experts that they were meant for Iraq’s nuclear program….” Officials cited in the article warn that the US must not wait for more evidence before taking action to disarm Iraq because the first sign of a “smoking gun” may be a mushroom cloud. [New York Times, 9/8/2002] (The “smoking gun/mushroom cloud” analogy was conceived by presidential speech writer Michael Gerson a few days earlier; see September 4, 2002 for details.) What Gordon and Miller’s sources did not tell them, and what they neglected to find out on their own, was that the country’s top nuclear experts do not believe the tubes are suitable for rotors (see, e.g., July 2001-March 2003, August 17, 2001, and Late 2001). For example, Houston G. Wood III, a retired Oak Ridge physicist, filed a report with the US government more than a year before (see August 17, 2001) concluding that the tubes were not meant for centrifuges. When he reads the New York Times story, he is shocked. In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation more than a year later, he will recount his initial reaction: “My first thought was, ‘This must be some new tubes,’ you know. And then… and then when I realized that these were the tubes that I had been looking at a year before, I was just… I was… I was just shocked. I couldn’t believe that, you know, here we were, saying that these tubes were, you know, the same tubes that I’d come to the conclusion a year before were not valid for centrifuges, and here they’re saying they are. So, er… that was a real surprise.” [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/27/2003] In subsequent stories about the tubes, the Times will note that there is a debate, however these reports will appear in the back pages of the newspaper (see, e.g., September 13, 2002). [New York Times, 5/26/2004]

Aerial photo of Iraqi chemical munitions facility. [Source: CIA]Secretary of State Colin Powell appears on “Fox News Sunday,” and asserts that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons stocks and that Saddam Hussein is intent on building a nuclear weapon. He cites a recent article in the New York Times by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon (see September 8, 2002) as evidence of Hussein’s nuclear ambitions. “There’s no doubt that he has chemical weapon stocks. We destroyed some after the Gulf War with the inspection regime, but there’s no doubt in our mind that he still has chemical weapon stocks and he has the capacity to produce more chemical weapons. With respect to biological weapons, we are confident that he has some stocks of those weapons, and he’s probably continuing to try to develop more. And biological weapons are very dangerous because they can be produced just about in any kind of pharmaceutical facility. With respect to nuclear weapons, we are quite confident that he continues to try to pursue the technology that would allow him to develop a nuclear weapon. Whether he could do it in one, five, six or seven, eight years is something that people can debate about, but what nobody can debate about is the fact that he still has the incentive, he still intends to develop those kinds of weapons. And as we saw in reporting just this morning, he is still trying to acquire, for example, some of the specialized aluminum tubing one needs to develop centrifuges that would give you an enrichment capability. So there’s no question that he has these weapons, but even more importantly, he is striving to do even more, to get even more.” Tony Snow, the program’s host, asks Secretary of State Colin Powell to respond to comments by former UN Chief Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in a speech he recently made to Iraq’s parliament, in which the former weapons inspector stated: “The rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government and others has not to date been backed up by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for attacking the United States. Void of such facts, all we have is speculation.” Powell responds: “We have facts, not speculation. Scott is certainly entitled to his opinion but I’m afraid that I would not place the security of my nation and the security of our friends in the region on that kind of an assertion by somebody who’s not in the intelligence chain any longer… If Scott is right, then why are they keeping the inspectors out? If Scott is right, why don’t they say, ‘Anytime, any place, anywhere, bring ‘em in, everybody come in—we are clean?’ The reason is they are not clean. And we have to find out what they have and what we’re going to do about it. And that’s why it’s been the policy of this government to insist that Iraq be disarmed in accordance with the terms of the relevant UN resolutions.” [Fox News, 9/8/2002; Associated Press, 9/8/2002; NewsMax, 9/8/2002]

Condoleezza Rice appears on CNN to discuss the alleged threat posed to the US by Saddam Hussein. She insists that Iraq is intent on developing a nuclear weapon. “We do know that he is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know that there have been shipments going into Iran, for instance—into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to—high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs. We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought, maybe six months from a crude nuclear device. The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t what the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” [CNN, 9/8/2002; CNN, 9/8/2002; New York Times, 7/20/2003; US House Committee on Government Reform, 3/16/2004] In his 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine, author Ron Suskind writes, “The statement sent off shock waves. Rice was criticized for fear-mongering, for suggesting that there was evidence that Hussein might have such a weapon. Arguments about proof, though, were missing the point—Rice’s roundabout argument was that the United States should act whether or not it found a “smoking gun.” She was showing an edge of the actual US policy: the severing of fact-based analysis from forceful response; acting on any inkling was now appropriate—to be safe, to be sure, to get an opponent before he can develop capability, so others know to not even start down that path.” [Suskind, 2006, pp. 170]

Vice President Dick Cheney is interviewed on NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss the Bush administration’s position on Iraq and the alleged threat Iraq poses to the world. “[B]ased on intelligence that’s becoming available—some of it has been made public [referring to the recent New York Times story—see September 8, 2002 ]—… he has indeed stepped up his capacity to produce and deliver biological weapons,… he has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon,… there are efforts under way inside Iraq to significantly expand his capability.… [H]e now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs.… There’s a story in The New York Times this morning… [I]t’s now public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel, the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. And the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium, which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb. This is a technology he was working on back, say, before the Gulf War. And one of the reasons it’s of concern,… is… [that] we know about a particular shipment. We’ve intercepted that. We don’t know what else—what other avenues he may be taking out there, what he may have already acquired. We do know he’s had four years without any inspections at all in Iraq to develop that capability.… [W]e do know, with absolute certainty, that he [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment [aluminum tubes] he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.” Cheney says the US intends to work with the international community, but hints that the US is willing to confront Saddam without international support. “We are trying very hard not be unilateralist,” he says. “We are working to build support with the American people, with the Congress, as many have suggested we should. And we are also as many of us suggested we should, going to the United Nations, and the president will address this issue.… We would like to do it with the sanction of the international community. But the point in Iraq is this problem has to be dealt with one way or the other.” [Meet the Press, 9/8/2002; Washington File, 9/9/2002; Washington Post, 2/7/2003; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/27/2003; New York Times, 10/3/2004] Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will later write of Cheney’s remarks: “Taken together [with Cheney’s recent speech to the VFW—see August 26, 2002], the vice president’s warnings made a compelling case for war. They were, however, entirely untrue. Yet they reframed the terms of the Iraq debate, leading the public to the conclusion that the question should not be ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ the nation goes to war in Iraq.” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 176]

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appears on CBS’ Face the Nation and talks about Iraq. He tells host Bob Schieffer, “[President Bush] has decided to go to the Congress and to the United Nations later this week and make the case of what Iraq has done for 11 years. It has invaded its neighbors; it’s violated almost every single UN resolution that relates to Iraq. And against the agreement they had to disarm, they proceeded to develop weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological and nuclear.” When asked if the government has “smoking gun” evidence that Iraq is developing nuclear weapons, Rumsfeld responds: “The smoking gun is an interesting phrase. It implies that what we’re doing here is law enforcement, that what we’re looking for is a case that we can take into a court of law and prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The problem with that is, the way one gains absolutely certainty as to whether a dictator like Saddam Hussein has a nuclear weapon is if he uses it, and that’s a little late. It’s not late if you’re interested in protecting rights of the defendant in a court of law, but it’s a quite different thing if one thinks about it.” Schieffer then asks whether or not the administration has information that has not yet been shared with the public. Rumsfeld says: “The problem we have, of course, is a real one. Intelligence, we spend billions of dollars gathering intelligence. And to do it, you have to have methods of doing it and sources from whom you get this information. And to the extent you take that intelligence and spread it out in the public record, what you do is you put people’s lives at risk, the sources of that information, because people can connect the dots there and say, well, who knew that, and then they go out and they stop people from helping us learn that type of information, or if it’s a source, a satellite or some other thing. To the extent that we reveal the information and show our capability, we then lose that capability because they find ways to deceive and deny us from gaining access to it. So there’s a very good reason for not taking all the information.” [CBS, 9/8/2002]

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and US President George Bush meet in Detroit to discuss policy towards Iraq as well as security measures along the US-Canadian border initiated after September 11. Chretien later tells reporters that Bush said that Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to militant Islamic groups was “not the angle they’re exploring now. The angle they’re exploring is the production of weapons of mass destruction.” [Washington Post, 9/10/2002; CNN, 9/10/2002]

Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on CNN’s American Morning, says: “I think that the people of Iraq would welcome the US force as liberators; they would not see us as oppressors, by any means.” [American Morning with Paula Zahn, 9/9/2002]

Nicolo Pollari, chief of SISMI, Italy’s military intelligence service, meets briefly with US National Security Council officials. [Il Foglio (Milan), 10/28/2005] Present at the meeting are National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice; her deputy, Stephen Hadley; and other US and Italian officials. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/25/2005; American Prospect, 10/25/2005; La Repubblica (Rome), 10/26/2005; Los Angeles Times, 10/28/2005; AGI online, 10/29/2005]Mysterious 'Courtesy Call' - Pollari can presumably set the record straight on the question of whether Iraq is trying to purchase aluminum tubes for manufacturing rockets or for use in building muclear weapons (see Between April 2001 and September 2002, April 11, 2001, July 25, 2002, September 24, 2002, October 1, 2002, Between December 2002 and January 2003, January 11, 2003, and March 7, 2003)—the aluminum tubes in question are exactly the same as the Italians use in their Medusa air-to-ground missile systems (see December 2002). Apparently Iraq is trying to reproduce “obsolete” missile systems dating back to when Italy and Iraq engaged in military trade. Pollari could also discuss the documents alleging that Iraq and Niger entered into a secret uranium deal (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001), a set of documents originally promulgated by SISMI and now thoroughly discredited (see February 5, 2003). But apparently Pollari discusses none of this with White House officials. Hadley, who hosts the meeting with Pollari, will refuse to say what they discuss, except to label Pollari’s visit “just a courtesy call,” and will add, “Nobody participating in that meeting or asked about that meeting has any recollection of a discussion of natural uranium, or any recollection of any documents passed.” Meeting with Hadley, Not Tenet, Significant - Author Craig Unger will write in 2007 that the real significance of the meeting is that Pollari meets with Hadley (widely considered an ally of Vice President Dick Cheney), and not with Pollari’s counterpart, CIA Director George Tenet. Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi later says, “It is completely out of protocol for the head of a foreign intelligence service to circumvent the CIA. It is uniquely unusual.” Of the Iraq-Niger documents, Giraldi will say, “In spite of lots of people having seen the documents, and having said they were not right, they went around them.” Former CIA and State Department analyst Melvin Goodman will concur. “To me there is no benign interpretation of” the Pollari-Hadley meeting, Goodman will say. “At the highest level it was known that the documents were forgeries. Stephen Hadley knew it. Condi Rice [Hadley’s supervisor] knew it. Everyone at the highest level knew.” Neoconservative columnist, author, and former Italian intelligence asset Michael Ledeen, who has close ties with both Pollari and Hadley and may have played a part in producing the Iraq-Niger forgeries (see December 9, 2001). will deny setting up the meeting. And a former CIA official speaking on Tenet’s behalf will say that Tenet has no information to suggest that Pollari or elements of SISMI were trying to circumvent the CIA and go directly to the White House. [Unger, 2007, pp. 258-259] (In 2006, history professor Gary Leupp will write that Ledeen is the informal liaison between SISMI and the Office of Special Plans—see September 2002). [CounterPunch, 11/9/2005]Downplaying Significance of Meeting - The Bush administration later insists the meeting was of little importance. Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman, describes the meeting as a courtesy call of 15 minutes or less. He also says, “No one present at that meeting has any recollection of yellowcake [uranium oxide] being discussed or documents being provided.” [New York Times, 10/28/2005]Meeting Remains Secret until 2005 - This meeting is not reported until 2005, when Italy’s La Repubblica reports that a meeting—arranged through a backchannel by Gianni Castellaneta, the Italian prime minister’s diplomatic advisor—took place between Pollari and Hadley on this date. The report is refuted by Italy which insists it was actually a short meeting between Pollari and Rice. Italy says that although Hadley was present, he was really not part of the meeting. [AGI online, 10/29/2005] It is not clear from the reporting, however, if the meeting acknowledged by Italy and Washington, is in fact the same meeting reported by La Repubblica.

David Albright, a physicist who helped investigate Iraq’s nuclear weapons program following the 1991 Persian Gulf War as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspection team, is disturbed to read Judith Miller’s story in the New York Times claiming that Iraq is trying to purchase aluminum tubes as part of an attempt to build centrifuges for a nuclear weapon (see September 8, 2002). After the aluminum tubes had been intercepted in the summer of 2001, Albright had been asked by an official to find out some information about them (see Late July 2001), and he had discovered that many experts doubted they were suitable for use in centrifuges. He had frequently worked with Miller in the past, and he contacts her and alerts her about the doubts of many officials, particularly those in the Department of Energy, regarding the Bush administration’s claims about the tubes. Follow-up Article - Miller and Michael Gordon do write a follow-up article in the Times on September 13, 2002. But while the article does eventually note that “there have been debates among intelligence experts about Iraq’s intentions in trying to buy such tubes,” it states that “other, more senior, officials insisted last night that this was a minority view among intelligence experts and that the CIA had wide support, particularly among the government’s top technical experts and nuclear scientists. ‘This is a footnote, not a split,’ a senior administration official said.” Insufficient - Albright is upset. He will later claim that he asked Miller “to alert people that there’s a debate, that there are competent people who disagreed with what the CIA was saying. I thought for sure she’d quote me or some people in the government who didn’t agree. It just wasn’t there.” He adds that the Times “made a decision to ice out the critics and insult them on top of it.” Albright goes to Joby Warrick of the Washington Post instead in hopes the Post will publish a better story. Warrick’s story comes out on September 19 and reveals the debate within the government about the tubes. It also notes reports that the Bush administration “is trying to quiet dissent among its own analysts over how to interpret the evidence.” But the story appears on page A18 and gets little notice compared to Miller’s front-page stories. [New York Review of Books, 2/26/2004] Still frustrated, Albright publishes his own report several days later challenging the aluminum tubes story (see September 23, 2002).

Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet give a classified briefing to some members of Congress in an attempt to persuade them of the immediate need to invade Iraq (see
September 19, 2002 and September 24, 2002). After the briefing, several Democrats say they are unconvinced that Saddam Hussein poses an imminent threat to the US; some intimate that the White House is trying to “politicize” the debate on the resolution in order to impact the elections. Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says, “I know of no information that the threat is so imminent from Iraq” that Congress cannot wait until January to vote on a resolution. “I did not hear anything today that was different about [Saddam Hussein’s] capabilities,” save a few “embellishments.” She is joined by Tom Lantos (D-CA), a hawkish Democrat who supports the overthrow of the current Iraq regime, but who wants a special session of Congress after the November 5 elections to debate a war resolution. “I do not believe the decision should be made in the frenzy of an election year,” he says. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) agrees: “It would be a severe mistake for us to vote on Iraq with as little information as we have. This would be a rash and hasty decision” because the administration has provided “no groundbreaking news” on Iraq’s ability to strike the United States or other enemies with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Durbin’s fellow senator, Evan Bayh (D-IN) adds that while he agrees Iraq is a valid threat, the White House must do more to convince lawmakers and the American people of that threat before asking Congress to approve military action. “If the president wants to have a vote before the election, he needs to give the military threat, or he risks looking political. With that timing, he will run the risk of looking brazenly political,” Bayh says. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) agrees with Pelosi and Durbin, saying, “What was described as new is not new. It was not compelling enough” to justify war. “Did I see a clear and present danger to the United States? No.” Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-NV) favors delaying the vote as well, but Daschle says he will likely allow the Senate to vote on the resolution if Bush meets several criteria, including obtaining more international support for a military campaign and providing senators a more detailed explanation of how the war would be conducted and how Iraq would be rebuilt. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) is one of the very few Republicans to oppose the resolution coming up for a vote before the elections. Most Republicans agree with Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), who wants the White House to submit a specific war resolution by September 23 so it can be voted on before the October adjournment. But an unnamed House Republican leader also seems to believe the case Tenet and Rice presented is weak: he says, “Daschle will want to delay this and he can make a credible case for delay.” [Washington Post, 9/10/2002; CNN, 9/10/2002; CNN, 9/11/2002]

An article in the Boston Globe suggests that neoconservatives in the Bush administration see war in Iraq as “merely a first step” in transforming the entire Middle East. Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, John Hannah, I. Lewis Libby, and John Bolton are said to be some of the top officials pushing this view. “Iraq, [they] argue, is just the first piece of the puzzle. After an ouster of Hussein, they say, the United States will have more leverage to act against Syria and Iran, will be in a better position to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and will be able to rely less on Saudi oil.” Vice President Dick Cheney also mentioned this motive in a speech in August, saying, “When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace” (see August 26, 2002). The article also says: “A powerful corollary of the strategy is that a pro-US Iraq would make the region safer for Israel and, indeed, its staunchest proponents are ardent supporters of the Israeli right-wing. Administration officials, meanwhile, have increasingly argued that the onset of an Iraq allied to the US would give the administration more sway in bringing about a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though Cheney and others have offered few details on precisely how.” One US official says, “Maybe we do stir the pot and see what comes up.” Former CIA analyst and Iraq expert Judith Yaphe is critical, saying: “There are some people who religiously believe that Iraq is the beginning of this great new adventure of remapping the Middle East and all these countries. I think that’s a simplistic view.” Jessica T. Mathews, president of Carnegie Endownment for International Peace, a Washington policy group, is also critical. “The argument we would be starting a democratic wave in Iraq is pure blowing smoke,” Mathews says. “You have 22 Arab governments and not one has made any progress toward democracy, not one. It’s one of the great issues before us, but the very last place you’d suspect to turn the tide is Iraq. You don’t go from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy overnight, not even quickly.” But one anonymous senior US official says: “There are people invested in this philosophy all throughout the administration. Some of the strongest voices are in [the State Department].” [Boston Globe, 9/10/2002]

In an appearance on Good Morning America with Charlie Gibson, Rumsfeld dismisses the notion that the administration needs to disclose evidence about Iraq’s banned weapons to the public before going to war. Gibson asks: “One of the seminal moments of my life was when John Kennedy went on television and showed satellite photos of Soviet missiles on Cuban soil. Isn’t it going to take—and do you have that kind of direct evidence?” In response, Rumsfeld states: “You know, the idea of direct evidence is not like a court of law under Article 3 of our Constitution where your goal is to punish somebody for doing something wrong. That really isn’t the case here. This is self defense, and the United States task is to see that we don’t allow an event to happen that then one has to punish someone.” Gibson then follows with another question: “But you can’t go to war without American public support and I’m asking don’t you need that kind of direct evidence? Or do you have it, to get the American public support or to get a coalition?” Rumsfeld replies: “The evidence is certainly there. The President has to decide what precisely he believes is the best approach. And one thing he’d say is, the one course of action that’s not acceptable is doing nothing.” [Financial Times, 9/11/2002; US Department of Defense, 9/11/2002]

In remarks made at a foreign policy conference at the University of Virginia, Philip Zelikow says that Iraq is more of a threat to Israel than to the US and that protecting Israel would be a major motive for a US-Iraq war. Zelikow’s speech goes unreported at the time but will come to light in a 2004 article. Zelikow says: “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel.… And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.” Zelikow is at the time a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), and will later serve as the executive director to the 9/11 Commission. [Asia Times Online, 3/31/2004] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt will later use Zelikow’s statement in their controversial paper “The Israel Lobby” as evidence that the Iraq War was launched in part to advance Israel’s security. [London Review of Books, 3/23/2006; London Review of Books, 4/25/2006; London Review of Books, 4/25/2006]

Peggy Noonan. [Source: MSNBC]Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speechwriter and a staunch loyalist of the first President Bush, implores the current President Bush to make a solid case for war with Iraq based on facts and not emotional pronouncements. “[I]f Mr. Bush is to make the case it will not be with emotional rhetoric, with singing phrases, with high oratory,” she writes. “It will not, in this coming cooler time, be made with references to evil ones. All of that was good, excellent and Bushian the past passionate year. But now Mr. Bush should think in terms of Sgt. Joe Friday. ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’ ‘Saddam is evil’ is not enough. A number of people are evil, and some are even our friends. ‘Saddam has weapons of mass destruction’ is not enough. A number of countries do. What the people need now is hard data that demonstrate conclusively that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction which he is readying to use on the people of the US or the people of the West. If Mr. Bush has a good case, he will make it and the people will back him. If he does not, he will not convince the American people that blood and treasure must go to this endeavor.” [Wall Street Journal, 9/11/2002]

White House speechwriter Michael Gerson contacts John Gibson, another speechwriter, at his Waldorf-Astoria hotel room where he is putting the final touches on Bush’s upcoming speech to the UN. Gerson asks him to contact National Security Council aide Robert Joseph about some new intelligence that Gibson might be able to insert into the speech. If it’s not used in the speech, “it’s something we might leak to the New York Times,” Gerson says. Gibson calls Joseph, who tells him to write in the speech that Iraq was caught trying to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger. Simultaneously, the office of Stephen Hadley, deputy national security adviser, asks the CIA to clear language so that President Bush can state: “Within the past few years, Iraq has resumed efforts to purchase large quantities of a type of uranium oxide known as yellowcake (see 1979-1982 and Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001).… The regime was caught trying to purchase 500 metric tons of this material. It takes about 10 tons to produce enough enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon.” But later in the day, the CIA rescinds its approval for this passage, saying that the information for this allegation had come from a single source and was not solid enough for a presidential speech. The reference to the alleged attempt to obtain uranium is dropped. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 85-86; Unger, 2007, pp. 259]

Bush giving his speech in front of the Statue of Liberty. [Source: September 11 News (.com)]The Bush administration’s public relations team decides to kick off its push for a war with Iraq, and its drive to the midterm elections, with President Bush’s speech commemorating the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. After much deliberation, Ellis Island in New York Harbor is chosen as the setting for Bush’s speech; the Ellis site won out over nearby Governors Island because the senior public relations officials want the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop. “We had made a decision that this would be a compelling story either place,” White House communications director Dan Bartlett will later recall. “We sent a team out to go and look and they said, ‘This is a better shot,’ and we said okay.” Leading that team is Scott Sforza, the former ABC producer who will later oversee the May 2003 “Mission Accomplished” event (see May 1, 2003 and April 30, 2008). [Rich, 2006, pp. 57-58] (Deputy press secretary Scott McClellan will later write of Sforza, “Reagan’s team had perfected this art of stagecraft, and the man in charge for Bush, deputy communications director Scott Sforza, took it to new heights.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 82] Sforza is joined by former Fox News producer Gary Jenkins and former NBC cameraman Bob De Servi. They use three barges laden with stadium lights to illuminate the Statue of Liberty for the shoot. Former Reagan administration public relations chief Michael Deaver will later observe that the Bush team is far better at this kind of marketing presentation than the Reagan, Bush I, or Clinton public relations teams ever were. “[T]hey’ve taken it to an art form,” Deaver will say. The speech is designed to push Congress towards authorizing the war before the midterm elections (see January 19, 2002 and October 10, 2002), when, as author Frank Rich will later write, “the pressure on congressmen facing re-election to prove their war-waging machismo would be at its nastiest. Any weak sisters could expect a thrashing much like that Republicans inflicted on Democrats who had failed to vote for the ‘use of force’ resolution sought by the first President Bush after the Persian Gulf War in 1991” (see January 9-13, 1991). A senior administration official says, “In the end it will be difficult for someone to vote against it.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 57-58] In other preparatory moves for the speech, the government raises the National Threat Level from yellow to orange (see September 10, 2002), and announces the death or capture of some 2,700 al-Qaeda operatives since 9/11 (see September 10, 2002). The administration will also attempt to significantly revise its account of events on 9/11 itself (see September 11, 2002).

The White House publishes a 26-page government white paper titled, “A Decade of Deception and Defiance,” which seeks to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein represents a serious and imminent threat to the United States. The report, written by White House Iraq Group member James Wilkinson, relies primarily on public sources, including reports that have been published by human rights groups and the State Department, as well as various newspaper articles, including two by the New York Times. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 48] Section 5 of the report deals with “Saddam Hussein’s support for international terrorism,” though it makes no attempt to tie Hussein’s government to al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. It lists six points linking Saddam Hussein to terrorist activities, some dating as far back as the ‘70s. One of the points criticizes Iraq for its ties to the Mujahadeen-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an obscure militant Iranian dissident group whose main office is in Baghdad. The report says: “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians.” The paper notes that the US State Department classified MKO as a “foreign terrorist organization” in 1997, “accusing the Baghdad-based group of a long series of bombings, guerilla cross-border raids and targeted assassinations of Iranian leaders.” [Newsweek, 9/26/2002Sources:Richard Durbin] The administration is quickly ridiculed for making the claim when, two weeks later, Newsweek reports that MKO’s front organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has a small office in the National Press Building in Washington, DC. It is also reported that only two years beforehand this very group had been supported by then-Senator John Ashcroft and more than 200 other members of Congress. On several issues the senator and his colleagues had expressed solidarity with MKO at the behest of their Iranian-American constituencies. [Newsweek, 9/26/2002] Another allegation included in the paper states that Iraqi defector Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a civil engineer, “had visited twenty secret facilities for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.” According to the White House dossier, Haideri “supported his claims with stacks of Iraqi government contracts, complete with technical specifications.” Ten months earlier, the CIA had debriefed Haideri in Bangkok and concluded from the results of a polygraph that Haideri account was a complete fabrication (see December 17, 2001). [Executive Office of the President, 9/12/2002 ]

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Bush says: “Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.… Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.” [PBS, 9/12/2002; US President, 9/16/2002; Age (Melbourne), 6/7/2003] Bush also says that the US “will work with the UN Security Council.” [US President, 9/16/2002; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 285] Deputy press secretary Scott McClellan will later describe the speech somewhat differently: “The UN speech… had been an ultimatum—either the UN acts to disarm Saddam Hussein or the United States will. The zero tolerance message was a further sign of how determined the president was to topple the regime by force. Saddam was never going to come completely clean. His power was grounded in brutality and in his ability to portray the regime as stronger than it was to intimidate the populace and potential enemies like Iran. The zero tolerance policy and the new ‘last chance’ resolution gave Bush plenty of room to maneuver and plausible justifications for his policy of regime change.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 142]

A CBS news poll concludes that 51 percent of Americans think that Saddam Hussein “was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks” and “70 percent believe that members of al-Qaeda are currently in Iraq.” [CBS News, 9/24/2002]

Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), an outspoken critic of the administration’s plan to invade Iraq, says: “There is no imminent threat by Iraq against the United States. Iraq does not have nuclear capabilities that anyone has been able to specifically determine, nor does it have the ability to deliver such a weapon, nor does it have the intent to do so. It could be said by Iraq that they are facing the imminent threat…. Oil is a factor. How much [of a factor] is anybody’s guess, but to discount it as a factor is, I think, to be misleading…. It’s not a conspiracy theory to bring it in because, after all, it is the second largest oil supply in the world.” [CNS News, 9/16/2002]

During a media roundtable discussion with the BBC And Voice Of America, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says: “Think of the faces in Afghanistan when the people were liberated, when they moved out in the streets and they started singing and flying kites and women went to school and people were able to function and other countries were able to start interacting with them. That’s what would happen in Iraq.” [US Department of Defense, 9/13/2002]

The New York Times publishes a second article reporting that the Bush administration believes a shipment of aluminum tubes destined for Iraq, intercepted in Jordan by US authorities in July (see July 2001), was intended for use in a gas centrifuge. Unlike the Times’ previous report, this article, appearing on page A13, mentions that there is a debate over the tubes between the Energy Department and CIA. It says that according to an unnamed official “[T]here have been debates among intelligence experts about Iraq’s intentions in trying to buy such tubes.” The article says that the official claims “the dominant view in the administration was that the tubes were intended for use in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium.” Another official interviewed by the newspaper claims that Energy’s alternative view “is a footnote, not a split.” One administration official is even quoted by the paper falsely asserting “that the best technical experts and nuclear scientists at laboratories like Oak Ridge supported the CIA assessment.” [New York Times, 9/13/2002; New York Times, 10/3/2004] After the article is published, the Energy Department releases a directive forbidding employees from discussing the issue with reporters. [New York Times, 10/3/2004]

Concerning the proposed Congressional resolution to authorize force against Iraq (see September 19, 2002), President Bush is asked, “Are you concerned that Democrats in Congress don’t want a vote there until after UN action?” Bush replies, “[Are] Democrats waiting for the UN to act? I can’t imagine an elected United States—elected member of the United States Senate or House of Representatives saying, I think I’m going to wait for the United Nations to make a decision. It seems like to me that if you’re representing the United States, you ought to be making a decision on what’s best for the United States. If I were running for office, I’m not sure how
I’d explain to the American people—say, vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I’m going to wait for somebody else to act.… My answer to the Congress is, they need to debate this issue and consult with us, and get the issue done as quickly as possible. It’s in our national interests that we do so. I don’t imagine Saddam Hussein sitting around, saying, gosh, I think I’m going to wait for some resolution. He’s a threat that we must deal with as quickly as possible.” [White House, 9/13/2002]

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Lindsey, head of the White House’s National Economic Council, says he believes the Bush administration’s planned invasion of Iraq could cost between $100 and $200 billion. The cost, he says, will have only a modest impact on the US economy, since it will only amount to between one and two percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). “One year [of additional spending]? That’s nothing.” Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget, subsequently disputes the figure, saying it is “very, very high.” He suggests the total costs would run between $50 and $60 billion. [Wall Street Journal, 9/16/2002; Reuters, 9/18/2002; Washington Times, 5/13/2005] The White House press office also denies Lindsey’s prediction. As the current deputy press secretary Scott McClellan will later recall: “Lindsey’s biggest mistake wasn’t the size of the figures he chose to cite. It was citing any figures at all. Talking about the projected cost of a potential war wasn’t part of the script, especially not when the White House was in the crucial early stages of building broad public support. In fact, none of the possible, unpleasant consequences of war—casualties, economic effects, geopolitical risks, diplomatic repercussions—were part of the message. We were in campaign mode now, just as we had been when [President] Bush traveled the country leading the effort to pass tax cuts and education reforms. This first stage was all about convincing the public that the threat was serious and needed addressing without delay. Citing or discussing potential costs, financial or human, only played into the arguments our critics and opponents of war were raising. Lindsey had violated the first rule of the disciplined, on-message Bush White House: don’t make news unless you’re authorized to do so. Lindsey’s transgression could only make the war harder to sell.” As McClellan recalls, Bush is “steamed” at Lindsey’s comments. Lindsey will resign four months later. McClellan will write: “Larry, a highly regarded economist, had violated a basic principle of the Bush White House: the president doesn’t like anyone getting out in front of him. It’s his job to make the news, not anyone else’s—unless authorized as part of the script.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 121-124]

In closed sessions, administration officials are asked several times whether they have evidence of an imminent threat from Iraq against US citizens. US Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA) later tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the officials acknowledged they had no such evidence. “They said ‘no,’” she says. “Not ‘no, but’ or ‘maybe,’ but ‘no.’ I was stunned. Not shocked. Not surprised. Stunned.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/2002Sources:Anna Eshoo]

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri meets with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Arab League Secretary-General Amir Moussa and gives them a letter expressing Baghdad’s willingness to readmit the UN weapons inspectors without conditions. The offer is made after Saddam Hussein convened an emergency meeting in Baghdad with his cabinet and the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). [Associated Press, 9/16/2002; Associated Press, 9/16/2002; Independent, 9/17/2002; New York Times, 9/17/2002] Iraq’s letter is effectively an agreement to the December 1999 UN Security Council Resolution 1284. [New York Times, 9/18/2002] Kofi Annan tells reporters after the meeting, “I can confirm to you that I have received a letter from the Iraqi authorities conveying its decision to allow the return of the inspectors without conditions to continue their work and has also agreed that they are ready to start immediate discussions on the practical arrangements for the return of the inspectors to resume their work.” Annan credits the Arab League, which he says “played a key role” in influencing Saddam Hussein’s decision to accept the inspectors, and suggests that a recent speech by Bush also played a critical part in influencing Baghdad’s decision. [UN News Center, 9/16/2002] UNMOVIC Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix also meets with Iraqi officials and it is reportedly agreed that weapons inspectors will return to Iraq on October 19. UNMOVIC spokesman Ewen Buchanan tells the BBC, “We are ready to discuss practical measures, such as helicopters, hotels, the installation of monitoring equipment and so on, which need to be put in place.” [BBC, 9/17/2002] The Bush administration immediately rejects the offer, calling it “a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong UN Security Council action,” in a statement released by the deputy press secretary. [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/2002; White House, 9/16/2002] And Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, tells reporters: “We’ve made it very clear that we are not in the business of negotiating with Saddam Hussein. We are working with the UN Security Council to determine the most effective way to reach our goal.” He then claims Iraq’s offer is a tactic to give “false hope to the international community that [President Saddam] means business this time,” adding, “Unfortunately, his more than decade of experience shows you can put very little into his words or deeds.” Two days later Bush will tell reporters that Saddam’s offer is “his latest ploy, his latest attempt not to be held accountable for defying the United Nations,” adding: “He’s not going to fool anybody. We’ve seen him before…. We’ll remind the world that, by defying resolutions, he’s become more and more of a threat to world peace. [The world] must rise up and deal with this threat, and that’s what we expect the Security Council to do.” [Independent, 9/17/2002; Agence France-Presse, 9/19/2002] Later that night, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice reportedly hold a conference call with Kofi Annan and accuse him of taking matters into his own hands. [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 285] Britain supports the US position and calls for a UN resolution backed with the threat of force. [BBC, 9/17/2002] Other nations react differently to the offer. For example, Russia’s Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, says: “It’s important that, through our joint efforts, we have managed to put aside the threat of a war scenario around Iraq and return the process to a political channel… It is essential in the coming days to resolve the issue of the inspectors’ return. For this, no new [Security Council] resolutions are needed.” [Independent, 9/17/2002; BBC, 9/17/2002]

Two days before the CIA is to issue an assessment (see August 2002) on Iraq’s supposed links to militant Islamic groups, Defense Department officials working in the Office of Special Plans (OSP) deliver a briefing in the White House to several top officials, including I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. The briefing is entitled “Assessing the Relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda,” and is an updated version of a briefing presented in July 2002 (see July 25, 2002). The OSP, working under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, is aggressively promoting any evidence it can find to support a decision to invade Iraq (see September 2002). The briefing claims that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda is “mature” and “symbiotic,” and marked by shared interests. It lists cooperation in 10 categories, or “multiple areas of cooperation,” including training, financing, and logistics. [Savage, 2007, pp. 292; New York Times, 4/6/2007; Washington Post, 4/6/2007] An alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between an Iraqi spy and 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta is listed as one of eight “Known Iraq-Al-Qaeda Contacts.” It claims that there is a “known contact” between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence agency, a claim already rejected by the CIA. [Savage, 2007, pp. 293; Washington Post, 4/6/2007] The briefing claims that “Fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement not only in 9/11 but also in previous al-Qaeda attacks.” [Washington Post, 4/6/2007] It includes a slide criticizing the rest of the US intelligence community, which says there are “fundamental problems” with CIA intelligence gathering methods. It claims other intelligence agencies assume “that secularists and Islamists will not cooperate, even when they have common interests,” and there is a “consistent underestimation of importance that would be attached by Iraq and al-Qaeda to hiding a relationship.” [Daily Telegraph, 7/11/2004; Newsweek, 7/19/2004; Savage, 2007, pp. 293; Washington Post, 4/6/2007]Around the same time, the briefing is also presented with slight variations to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet. The slide criticizing other intelligence agencies is excluded when a version of the briefing is given to Tenet. A later report by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General will conclude the briefing was entirely incorrect and deliberately ignored intelligence by the CIA, DIA, and other intelligence agencies that contradicted its conclusions (see February 9, 2007). [Washington Post, 4/6/2007] The CIA has already found the majority of the information in the presentation either completely false or largely unsupported by reliable evidence. [Savage, 2007, pp. 293]Unusual Briefing - This briefing, delivered at the same time the White House is pressing Congress to authorize the upcoming war with Iraq (see October 11, 2002), is, in the words of author and reporter Charlie Savage, “highly unusual.” Usually, high-level administration officials making national security decisions rely on information vetted by top-flight analysts at the CIA, in order to ensure the information is as accurate and politically neutral as possible. No CIA analyst has ever found a meaningful link between Hussein and al-Qaeda; the few reports of such claims were seen as highly dubious. But Cheney and his supporters consider the CIA slow, pedantic, and incompetent, and believe Feith’s OSP can provide better—or at least more amenable—intelligence. Savage will write: “In Feith’s shop and elsewhere in the executive branch, neoconservative political appointees stitched together raw intelligence reports, often of dubious credibility, without any vetting or analysis by professional intelligence specialists. The officials cherry-picked the files for reports that supported the notion that Iraq had an active [WMD] program and that it was working hand-in-hand with al-Qaeda, ‘stovepiping’ such reports to top decision makers (and leaking them to the press) while discounting any skepticism mounted by the professionals.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 292]Dismantling Intelligence Filtering System in Favor of Politically Controlled Intelligence Provisions - What the presentation accomplishes, according to former CIA intelligence analyst Kenneth Pollock, is to support a conclusion already drawn—the need to get rid of Saddam Hussein—by using slanted, altered, and sometimes entirely fabricated “intelligence.” The White House proceeded to “dismantle the existing filtering process that for 50 years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information.” Savage goes one step farther. He will write that the presentation is part of a larger White House strategy to alter the balance of power between the presidency and a key element of the bureaucracy. By setting up a politically controlled alternative intelligence filtering system, he will write, “the administration succeeded in diminishing the power of the CIA’s information bureaucracy to check the White House’s desired course of action.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 294]

In a speech in Davenport, Iowa, President Bush reiterates his talking points against Iraq: Saddam Hussein’s harsh treatment of his citizens, its disregard and duplicity regarding United Nations resolutions, and its support for Islamist terrorism. Together, these make Iraq into “a grave and gathering danger” that must be dealt with. Bush says: “My nation will work with the UN Security Council to meet our common challenge. If Iraq’s regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately, decisively to hold Iraq to account. But the purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced—the just demands of peace and security will be met—or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose his power.” Scott McClellan, currently the deputy White House press secretary, will later write, “In a White House that prided itself on message discipline, Bush’s speech provided the new talking points for ‘educating the public about the threat’ (as we described our campaign to sell the war).” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 119-120] In the morning press gaggle, McClellan softpedals the president’s message somewhat: “The president will continue to consult with the international community and Congress as we move forward, and he will continue to talk to the American people as we move forward on any particular course of action. That is something he is doing now, and that is something he will continue to do. But what needs to happen right now is that the UN needs to act, and they need to back up their actions with enforcement. And that’s where our focus is, and we’re pleased with the emerging consensus from the international community around the president’s call for the UN to act.” [White House, 9/16/2002]

CIA Director George Tenet testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee. On the subject of alleged connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, Tenet, using a recently released CIA draft report entitled “Iraqi Support for Terrorism,” tells the panel that no evidence of any such connections exists. Iraq had no foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks or any other al-Qaeda strike, Tenet says. He testifies: “The intelligence indicates that the two sides at various points have discussed safe-haven, training, and reciprocal non-aggression. There are several reported suggestions by al-Qaeda to Iraq about joint terrorist ventures, but in no case can we establish that Iraq accepted or followed up on these suggestions.” [Center for Public Integrity, 1/23/2008]

The French arrange a backchannel meeting between a friend of Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Hadithi and the CIA’s station chief in Paris, Bill Murray. Sabri’s friend, a Lebanese journalist, tells Murray that Sabri would be willing to provide the CIA with accurate information on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program in exchange for $1 million. The CIA agrees to advance the journalist $200,000. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 45; MSNBC, 3/21/2006] When CIA Director George Tenet announces the deal during a high-level meeting at the White House—attended by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice—the news is greeted with enthusiasm. “They were enthusiastic because they said, they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis,” Tyler Drumheller, the agency’s head of spying in Europe, later tells 60 Minutes. [CBS News, 4/23/2006] But Sabri does not tell the CIA what the White House is expecting to hear. In a New York hotel room, the Lebanese journalist says that according to Sabri Iraq does not have a significant, active biological weapons program. He does however acknowledge that Iraq has some “poison gas” left over from the first Gulf War. Regarding the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program, Sabri’s friend says the Iraqis do not have an active program because they lack the fissile material needed to develop a nuclear bomb. But he does concede that Hussein desperately wants one. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 62-63; MSNBC, 3/21/2006] “He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction programs,” Drumheller, will recall. [Unger, 2007, pp. 246-247] The White House immediately loses interest in Sabri as a source after the New York meeting. Sabri, Bush says, is merely telling the US “the same old thing.” The CIA continues to corroborate material provided to the agency by Sabri. Wiretaps on Sabri’s phone conversations by French intelligence back up Sabri’s claims, but Bush could not care less. “Bush didn’t give a f_ck about the intelligence,” a CIA officer will later say. “He had his mind made up.” CIA agent Luis (whose full name has never been disclosed) and John Maguire, the chief and deputy chief of the Iraq Operations Group, also lose interest in the lead. In one confrontation between Maguire and Murray, Maguire allegedly says: “One of these days you’re going to get it. This is not about intelligence. This is about regime change.” Drumheller will agree, saying the White House is “no longer interested.… They said, ‘Well, this isn’t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.’” [MSNBC, 3/21/2006; CBS News, 4/23/2006; Unger, 2007, pp. 246-247]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warns the House Armed Services Committee of the serious and imminent threat that Saddam Hussein poses to Western countries. He says: “No terrorist state poses a greater and more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein.” He adds: “What has not changed is Iraq’s drive to acquire those weapons of mass destruction, and the fact that every approach that the United Nations has taken to stop Iraq’s drive has failed. This is a critical moment for our country and for the world. Our resolve is being put to the test. It is a test unfortunately the world’s free nations have failed before in recent history with unfortunate consequences.” [US Congress, 9/18/2002; Daily Telegraph, 9/19/2002; Agence France-Presse, 9/19/2002] Rumsfeld says of Iraq’s putative nuclear weapons program, “Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent—that Saddam [Hussein] is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain…. He has, at this moment, stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and is pursuing nuclear weapons.” [Salon, 3/6/2004] The Secretary of Defense also says that Congress must authorize the president to use military force against Iraq before the Security Council votes on the issue. “Delaying a vote in the Congress would send a message that the US may be unprepared to take a stand, just as we are asking the international community to take a stand and as we are cautioning the Iraqi regime to consider its options,” argues Rumsfeld, adding, “Our job today—the president’s, the Congress’ and the United Nations’—is to… anticipate vastly more lethal attacks before they happen and to make the right decision as to whether or not it’s appropriate for this country to take action…. The goal is not inspections, the goal is disarmament.” [US Congress, 9/18/2002; Associated Press, 9/19/2002] He also tries to discredit Iraq’s September 16, 2002 (see September 16, 2002), offer to admit UN inspectors without conditions. He says: “There’s no doubt in my mind but that the inspection program that currently is on the books wouldn’t work because it’s so much weaker than the earlier one. The more inspectors that are in there, the less likely something is going to happen. The longer nothing happens, the more advanced their weapons programs go along.” [US Congress, 9/18/2002] Rumsfeld is drastically revising his own stance from over a year before, when he told an interviewer on February 12, 2001, that Iraq was “probably not a nuclear threat” (see February 12, 2001).

The New York Times publishes an article by Judith Miller entitled, “Verification Is Difficult at Best, Say the Experts, and Maybe Impossible.” Miller quotes a number of officials and former inspectors who claim that UN inspectors would face nearly insurmountable obstacles if they return to Iraq. But the sources chosen seem to be selected to agree with Miller’s position. For instance, she quotes David Kay at length, and he says “their task is damn near a mission impossible.” She describes Kay as “a former inspector who led the initial nuclear inspections in Iraq in the early 1990s,” but in fact Kay only spent five weeks as an inspector, in 1991. She also quotes Iraqi defector Khidir Hamza, who she says “led part of Iraq’s nuclear bomb program until he defected in 1994.” Hamza claims that Iraq is getting close to developing a nuclear bomb, and the Iraqi government “now excelled” in hiding its nuclear weapons program. But in fact Hamza resigned from Iraq’s nuclear program in 1990 and had no firsthand knowledge of it after that. Hamza moved to the US and worked for David Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security, but by 1999 Albright could no longer stand Hamza’s exaggerated claims and fired him. Hamza then published a book that contained “many ridiculous claims,” according to Albright (see November 2000), who will also say that Hamza’s claims are “often inaccurate.… He sculpts his message to get the message across.… [He] wants regime change [in Iraq] and what interferes with that is just ignored.” Of Miller, Albright will later claim: “She should have known about this. This is her area.” One International Atomic Energy Agency staff member will later say: “Hamza had no credibility at all.… Journalists who called us and asked for an assessment of these people—we’d certainly tell them.” [New York Times, 8/18/2002; New York Review of Books, 2/26/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 252]

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is subjected to intense questioning by Senator Robert Byrd about the United States’ role in providing Iraq with the materials for its chemical and biological weapons and Rumsfeld’s December 20, 1983 visit to Baghdad (see December 20, 1983). [US Congress, 9/20/2002]Byrd - “Mr. Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?” [US Congress, 9/20/2002]Rumsfeld - “Certainly not to my knowledge. I have no knowledge of United States companies or government being involved in assisting Iraq develop chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.” [US Congress, 9/20/2002]Byrd - “[After reading Mr. Rumsfeld excerpts from a Newsweek article] Let me ask you again: Did the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?” [US Congress, 9/20/2002]Rumsfeld - “I have not read the article…. I was, for a period in late ‘83 and early ‘84, asked by President Reagan to serve as Middle East envoy after the Marines—241 Marines were killed in Beirut. As part of my responsibilities I did visit Baghdad. I did meet with Mr. Tariq Aziz. And I did meet with Saddam Hussein and spent some time visiting with them about the war they were engaged in with Iran. At the time our concern, of course, was Syria and Syria’s role in Lebanon and Lebanon’s role in the Middle East and the terrorist acts that were taking place. As a private citizen I was assisting only for a period of months. I have never heard anything like what you’ve read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt it.” [US Congress, 9/20/2002]

Eleven days after the New York Times published a front-page article detailing Iraq’s supposed attempt to procure components for creating nuclear weapons (see August 2002 and September 8, 2002), the Washington Post’s Joby Warrick has a story published, “Evidence on Iraq Challenged; Experts Question if Tubes Were Meant for Weapons Program,” that disputes the Times’ article and questions whether the components—aluminum tubes—are indeed intended for nuclear use. Warrick cites “a report by independent experts” from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) questioning the conclusion that the tubes must be for use in constructing nuclear weapons (see September 23, 2002). The ISIS report also notes that the Bush administration is trying to rein in dissent among its own analysts about how to interpret the evidence provided by the aluminum tubes. “By themselves, these attempted procurements are not evidence that Iraq is in possession of, or close to possessing, nuclear weapons,” the report says. “They do not provide evidence that Iraq has an operating centrifuge plant or when such a plant could be operational.” In recent days, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has told television viewers that the tubes “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs” (see September 8, 2002). But Warrick’s story is buried on page 18 of the Post and widely ignored. Author Craig Unger will later write: “No one paid attention. Once the conventional wisdom had been forged, mere facts did not suffice to change things.” [Washington Post, 9/19/2002; Unger, 2007, pp. 254]

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri reads the full text of a statement by Saddam Hussein before the UN secretariat-general. The statement condemns the Bush administration’s attempts to provoke a war with Iraq and accuses the administration of working hand in hand with the hardline Zionists in the Israeli government [Arabic News, 9/21/2002] “I hereby declare before you that Iraq is totally clear of all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons,” the letter says. “Our country is ready to receive any scientific experts, accompanied by politicians you choose to represent any one of your countries, to tell us which places and scientific and industrial installations they would wish to see.” [New York Times, 9/20/2002] Hussein also states that in pursuing its aggressive policy towards Iraq, the US is “acting on behalf of Zionism which has been killing the heroic people of Palestine, destroying their property, murdering their children,” adding that Washington intends to “control Middle East oil.” The passage draws the applause of several UN diplomats. [Independent, 9/20/2002]

The White House delivers a draft of a strongly worded resolution to Congress authorizing the president to use “all appropriate means” against Iraq. The 20-paragraph draft includes provisions that would allow Bush to ignore the UN and “use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to enforce” the UN’s Security Council resolutions, “defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq, and restore international peace and security in the region.” According to the Associated Press, “Three senior White House aides familiar with the draft said it would give Bush maximum flexibility to confront the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, including an explicit OK to use military force.” Although numerous congresspersons complain that the proposed wording of the resolution would provide Bush with a blank check to use military force anywhere in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, several senators—Democrats and Republicans alike—say that an amended version of the resolution would likely pass. [Associated Press, 9/19/2002; London Times, 9/19/2002; Independent, 9/19/2002; Associated Press, 9/20/2002] The draft lists several allegations against Iraq, depicting the country as an imminent threat against the US and its citizens. It states that Iraq continues to “possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations, thereby continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States and international peace and security.” It also claims that Iraq “continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations,” including members of al-Qaeda. [Associated Press, 9/20/2002] The proposed resolution asserts that the use of military force against Iraq would constitute self-defense. It reads, “Whereas the United States has the inherent right, as acknowledged in the United Nations Charter, to use force in order to defend itself.” [Associated Press, 9/20/2002] The draft calls on Congress to authorize the president to use military force against Iraq. “The President is authorized to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to enforce the United Nations Security Council Resolutions referenced above, defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq, and restore international peace and security in the region.” [Associated Press, 9/20/2002] At a photo opportunity with Secretary of State Colin Powell the same day, Bush tells a gathering of reporters, “At the United Nations Security Council it is very important that the members understand that the credibility of the United Nations is at stake, that the Security Council must be firm in its resolve to deal with a truth threat to world peace, and that is Saddam Hussein. That the United Nations Security Council must work with the United States and Britain and other concerned parties to send a clear message that we expect Saddam to disarm. And if the United Nations Security Council won’t deal with the problem, the United States and some of our friends will.” Allies of the US that Bush expects to join in moving against Iraq “heard me loud and clear when I said, either you can be the United Nations, a capable body, a body able to keep the peace, or you can be the League of Nations.” Of the resolution, Bush says, “I am sending suggested language for a resolution. I want—I’ve asked for Congress’ support to enable the administration to keep the peace. And we look forward to a good, constructive debate in Congress.” Bush emphasizes that the resolution must pass before the upcoming November midterm elections: “I appreciate the fact that the leadership recognizes we’ve got to move before the elections” (see September 24, 2002). [White House, 9/19/2005] White House political adviser Karl Rove will later claim that the White House does not want to push the resolution through Congress before the elections in order to avoid politicizing the issue, a claim that is demonstrably untrue (see November 20, 2007).

UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix tells the Security Council that he intends to position an advance weapons inspection team in Iraq by October 15. He explains: “We will select some sites that we think are interesting to go to in the early phases, so it’s not like it takes two months before we can send any guys out there in the field. It will be much earlier than that.” [BBC, 9/20/2002]

A group of nineteen House Democrats form a coalition against war in Iraq and draft a resolution advocating multilateral diplomacy. [Washington Times, 9/20/2002] Representative Barbara Lee of California introduces a resolution advocating that “the United States… work through the United Nations to seek to resolve the matter of ensuring that Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction, through mechanisms such as the resumption of weapons inspections, negotiation, enquiry, mediation, regional arrangements, and other peaceful means.” The resolution has twenty-six co-sponsors. [US Congress, 9/19/2002 ] The resolution dies in the House Committee on International Relations.

White House and Pentagon officials publicly disclose that the Department of Defense has finished a highly detailed plan for attacking Iraq that was delivered to President Bush’s desk in early September by Gen. Tommy R. Franks. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says, “The president has options now, and he has not made any decisions.” The New York Times interviews senior officials who explain that the plan includes specific details, including the “number of ground troops, combat aircraft and aircraft carrier battle groups that would be needed,” and the “detailed sequencing for the use of air, land, naval and Special Operations forces to attack thousands of Iraqi targets, from air-defense sites to command-and-control headquarters to fielded forces.” Officials also tell the Times that any attack would begin “with a lengthy air campaign led by B-2 bombers armed with 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs to knock out Iraqi command and control headquarters and air defenses.” The principal goal of the air attacks, they say, “would be to sever most communications from Baghdad and isolate Saddam Hussein from his commanders in the rest of the country.” [New York Times, 9/21/2002] The disclosure of this information notably comes only a few days after Iraq has offered to unconditionally admit weapons inspectors (see September 16, 2002).

The Bush administration submits to Congress a 31-page document entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United States.” Preemptive War - The National Security Strategy (NSS) openly advocates the necessity for the US to engage in “preemptive war” against nations it believes are likely to become a threat to the US’s security. It declares: “In an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle. The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.” The declaration that the US will engage in preemptive war with other nations reverses decades of American military and foreign policy stances; until now, the US has held that it would only launch an attack against another nation if it had been attacked first, or if American lives were in imminent danger. President Bush had first mentioned the new policy in a speech in June 2002 (see June 1, 2002), and it echoes policies proposed by Paul Wolfowitz during the George H. W. Bush administration (see March 8, 1992). [Shenon, 2008, pp. 128]US Must Maintain Military 'Beyond Challenge' - The National Security Strategy states that the ultimate objective of US national security policy is to “dissuade future military competition.” The US must therefore “build and maintain our defenses beyond challenge. Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.” [London Times, 9/21/2002]Ignoring the International Criminal Court - The NSS also states, “We will take the actions necessary to ensure that our efforts to meet our global security commitments and protect Americans are not impaired by the potential for investigations, inquiry, or prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose jurisdiction does not extend to Americans and which we do not accept.” [US President, 9/2002]Declaring War on Terrorism Itself - It states: “The enemy is not a single political regime or person or religion or ideology. The enemy is terrorism—premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents.” Journalism professor Mark Danner will later comment in the New York Times: “Not Islamic terrorism or Middle Eastern terrorism or even terrorism directed against the United States: terrorism itself. ‘Declaring war on “terror,”’ as one military strategist later remarked to me, ‘is like declaring war on air power.’” [New York Times Magazine, 9/11/2005]Fundamental Reversal of Containment, Deterrence Principles - Washington Post reporter Tim Reich later describes the NSS as “revers[ing] the fundamental principles that have guided successive presidents for more than 50 years: containment and deterrence.” Foreign policy professor Andrew Bacevich will write that the NSS is a “fusion of breathtaking utopianism [and] barely disguised machtpolitik.” Bacevich continues, “It reads as if it were the product not of sober, ostensibly conservative Republicans but of an unlikely collaboration between Woodrow Wilson and the elder Field Marshal von Moltke.” [American Conservative, 3/24/2003]Written by Future Executive Director of 9/11 Commission - The document is released under George W. Bush’s signature, but was written by Philip D. Zelikow, formerly a member of the previous Bush administration’s National Security Council, and currently a history professor at the University of Virginia and a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Zelikow produced the document at the behest of his longtime colleague National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (see June 1, 2002). His authorship of the document will not be revealed until well after he is appointed executive director of the 9/11 commission (see Mid-December 2002-March 2003). Many on the Commission will consider Zelikow’s authorship of the document a prima facie conflict of interest, and fear that Zelikow’s position on the Commission will be used to further the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive war (see March 21, 2004). [US Department of State, 8/5/2005; Shenon, 2008, pp. 128]

President Bush hosts a dinner meeting with a group of Republican governors at the White House. As deputy press secretary Scott McClellan will later recall, because the meeting is private—no press is allowed—Bush is “conspicuously candid with his former colleagues, now trusted friends and political allies.… Bush’s forthrightness about his thinking and approach on Iraq [is] revealing.” Bush boasts of the recent capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh (see September 11, 2002) and says of Osama bin Laden, “[W]e don’t know where he is, but he has been diminished.” He then turns to Iraq: “It is important to know that Iraq is an extension of the war on terror,” he says. “In the international debate, we are starting to shift the burden of guilt to the guilty. The international community is risk averse. But I assure you I am going to stay plenty tough.” He repeats his belief that if the international community brings enough pressure to bear, the Iraqi people will take matters into their own hands: “I believe regime change can occur if we have strong, robust inspections. Saddam Hussein is a guy who is likely to have his head show up on a platter” if enough outside pressure is brought to bear. Of Hussein, Bush says: “He is a hateful, ugly, repugnant man who needs to go. He is also paranoid. This is a guy who killed his own security guards recently. I would like to see him gone peacefully. But if I unleash the military, I promise you it will be swift and decisive.” He then tells the governors how to handle questions from possible critics: “Don’t fall into the argument that there is no one to replace Saddam Hussein.… And our planning will make sure there is no oil disruption; we are looking at options to enhance oil flow.” To sum up, Bush says: “Military force is my last option, but it may be the only choice.… I’m gonna make a prediction. Write this down. Afghanistan and Iraq will lead that part of the world to democracy. They are going to be the catalyst to change the Middle East and the world.” In the questioning period, Bush tells the governors that while he intends to invade Iraq sooner rather than later, he is aware that the political timing of the decision is important, with the midterm elections approaching. He reiterates: “[I]f we have to go [into Iraq], we will be tough and swift and it will be violent so troops can move very quickly.… If we go, we will use the full force and the might of the US military (see February 25, 2003).… I believe in the power of freedom.” After the meeting, Governor John Rowland (R-CT), the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, calls the meeting a “heart to heart” on Iraq. But, McClellan will later reflect, “it was also a frank strategy powwow between the leader of a campaign and some important members of his team—a collection of local politicians who could play a crucial role in helping to generate popular support for the decision to invade.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 139-141]

The Bush administration makes it clear that it will prevent the UN inspectors from going to Iraq under the terms of the current UN resolution. Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the House International Relations Committee, “If somebody tried to move the team in now [before a UN resolution authorizing the use of force is passed], we would find ways to thwart that.” [BBC, 9/20/2002; Daily Telegraph, 9/21/2002; CNN, 9/29/2002]

Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley convenes a meeting in the White House Situation Room to discuss Iraq with Colin Powell, George Tenet, and Donald Rumsfeld. The White House wants to be sure they are all on the same page when they testify before Congress next week. When a CIA officer notes that the alleged ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda are not supported by current intelligence, Douglas Feith cuts in insisting that Mohamed Atta had met an Iraqi agent in Prague, and that the director of Iraqi intelligence had met with Osama bin Laden in 1996. Both theories have been dismissed by the intelligence community. After a few minutes, Hadley cuts him off and tells him to sit down. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 113-114]

The New York Times publishes a highly detailed set of military options the Pentagon has recently given President Bush for attacking Iraq (see September 20, 2002). General Tommy Franks gave Bush the document just before a US speech at the UN calling for military action against Saddam Hussein. The attack would begin with a lengthy air campaign by B-2 bombers using satellite-guided bombs to knock out Iraqi command centers and air defenses, to isolate Hussein from field commanders. Ground forces would stage out of Kuwait. “The President has options now, and he has not made any decisions,” states White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. [New York Times, 9/21/2002] These plans assume that only 5,000 troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006, a date only 45 months from the proposed invasion date - D-Day. The plans discussed goals and strategies for the invasion: “POTUS/SECDEF [President of US/Secretary of Defense] directed effort; limited to a very small group… Integrate / consider all elements of national power… [State Department] will promote creation of a broad-based, credible provisional government - prior to D-day… Iraqi regime has WMD capability.” [National Security Archive, 2/14/2007] The release of the military plans causes no widespread outrage or official US investigation, suggesting the White House approved the leak.

Representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department’s intelligence agency meet to discuss the draft of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which will be published the following month (see October 1, 2002). Representing the DOE’s intelligence service is Thomas Ryder, who is temporarily filling in as the office’s acting director. Significantly, Ryder is a “human resources guy” with no intelligence background. “Ryder is not an intelligence guy by any stretch of the imagination,” a DOE source will later explain to World Net Daily. “He [has]… no intel background whatsoever. He [works] on all the personnel stuff—paperwork for promotions, hiring contractors, stuff like that.” At the meeting, Ryder is supposed to represent the position of the DOE’s scientists and intelligence officers, who believe that Iraq has not reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. Scientists in the Energy Department as well as officers in the department’s intelligence office want to join the INR in its dissenting vote. One official will later explain to World Net Daily, “Senior folks in the office wanted to join INR on the footnote, and even wanted to write it with them, so the footnote would have read, ‘Energy and INR.’” [WorldNetDaily, 8/12/2003; New York Times, 10/3/2004Sources: Unnamed US official] Instead Ryder will side with the other intelligence agencies who claim that Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. An official later tells World Net Daily that when Ryder and his staff were arguing over Iraq’s alleged program during a pre-brief, Ryder told them to “shut up and sit down.” [WorldNetDaily, 8/12/2003Sources: Unnamed US official] When the voting takes place, Ryder does not sign his department onto the State Department’s dissenting opinion. As a result, the final vote is a near unanimous 5-1. “Time comes for the Iraq NIE, and instead of being hard-charging and proactive and pulling everybody together, he just didn’t know what to do,” one source later says. “He wasn’t a strong advocate. He just didn’t have the background. He didn’t have the gravitas.” The Department of Energy’s position on the issue is considered very important. “Energy’s vote on the nuclear allegation was critical, because the department is viewed as the final arbiter of technical disputes regarding nuclear-proliferation issues,” World Net Daily will note. [WorldNetDaily, 8/12/2003; WorldNetDaily, 8/12/2003Sources: Unnamed US official] While serving in the temporary DOE position, Ryder, who is said to be close to Secretary Spencer Abraham, receives bonuses totaling $20,500. Energy insiders will say they cannot remember a previous instance where an intelligence chief had been provided with such a large bonus. “That’s a hell of a lot of money for an intelligence director who had no experience or background in intelligence, and who’d only been running the office for nine months,” one official says. “Something’s fishy.” [WorldNetDaily, 8/12/2003]

David Albright, a physicist who helped investigate Iraq’s nuclear weapons program following the 1991 Persian Gulf War as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspection team, concludes in a study that Iraq’s attempt to import aluminum tubes is not “evidence that Iraq is in possession of, or close to possessing, nuclear weapons” or that Iraq has an operating centrifuge plant. His assessment is based on several factors, including the fact that the tubes are made of an aluminum alloy that is ill-suited for welding. He notes that Iraq had used maraging steel and carbon fiber in its earlier attempts to make centrifuges (see (Late 1980s)). Albright also challenges the CIA’s contention the tubes’ anodized coating is an indication that they are meant to be used as rotors in a gas centrifuge. The nuclear physicist notes that the fact the tubes are anodized actually supports the theory that they were meant to be used in rockets, not a centrifuge. He cites another expert who said that an “anodized layer on the inside of the tube… can result in hampering the operation of the centrifuge.” [Albright, 10/9/2003Sources:David Albright] Though Albright is critical of the charges being made by the Bush administration against Iraq, concerning nuclear weapons, he is no sympathizer of Saddam Hussein. He believes that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and advocates a tough stance towards his regime. [New York Review of Books, 2/26/2004] His report is widely dispersed and is covered in detail by the Washington Post on September 19, 2002 (see September 19, 2002). Several other newspapers also cover Albright’s report. [Washington Post, 9/19/2002; Guardian, 10/9/2002; San Francisco Chronicle, 10/12/2002] It is later revealed that scientists at the Energy Department secretly worked with Albright on the report. [New York Times, 10/3/2004]

Three retired four-star generals testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee and warn Congress that a unilateral strike against Iraq without UN approval might limit aid from allies, create more recruits for al-Qaeda and subvert long term US diplomatic and economic interests. A fourth general urges the committee to support the use of military force against Iraq. [New York Times, 9/24/2002]

British education secretary Estelle Morris asks during a cabinet meeting what specifically has changed over the last few years—other than President George Bush’s coming to office—that makes military action against Iraq necessary. [Sunday Times (London), 10/5/2003; Guardian, 10/6/2003]

In a speech to the Commonwealth Club, former Vice President Al Gore discusses his views on the struggle against terrorism and the proposed war in Iraq. He says that the major focus of the US should be the apprehension and punishment of “those who sponsored, planned and implemented the cold-blooded murder of more than 3,000 Americans.” He states his belief that the US is capable of succeeding in this task, despite the fact that it is taking much longer than anticipated. “President Bush is telling us that America’s most urgent requirement of the moment—right now—is not to redouble our efforts against al-Qaeda, not to stabilize the nation of Afghanistan after driving its host government from power, even as al-Qaeda members slip back across the border to set up in Afghanistan again; rather, he is telling us that our most urgent task right now is to shift our focus and concentrate on immediately launching a new war against Saddam Hussein. And the president is proclaiming a new, uniquely American right to preemptively attack whomsoever he may deem represents a potential future threat.” Gore warns that “if other nations assert that same right, then the rule of law will quickly be replaced by the reign of fear.” He states that this policy of preemptive action will damage American international alliances and inhibit the effective execution of the war on terror, which requires a multilateral approach to succeed. Gore advises Congress to fully examine the evidence prior to any commitment in Iraq and to always bear in mind what he says are the core principles of the US. He says “the administration has not said much of anything to clarify its idea of what would follow regime change or the degree of engagement that it is prepared to accept for the United States in Iraq in the months and years after a regime change has taken place.” Ominously, he warns “the resulting chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” Gore asks, “What if in the aftermath of a war against Iraq, we face a situation like that because we washed our hands of it?…what if the al-Qaeda members infiltrated across the borders of Iraq the way they are in Afghanistan?” [Commonwealth Club.org, 9/23/2002]

National Public Radio (NPR) learns of the administration’s tough approach to what it calls a pattern of information leaks from Congress and government employees. The FBI is investigating a number of Congressmen who are suspected of leaking information about the administration’s Iraq policies to the press (regardless of the presumption that members of Congress have the right to reveal unclassified information as they see fit), but the administration wants more from the FBI than questioning legislators. The administration is pushing the FBI to administer lie detector tests to legislators and federal employees it suspects of talking to reporters. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants to jail leakers who work for the government. And one of Rumsfeld’s analysts has suggested that police SWAT teams be sent to reporters’ homes to help find leakers. [Unger, 2007, pp. 256] By August 2002, the FBI also questioned nearly all senators and congresspeople making up the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry to uncover which one of them leaked information to the press (see August 2, 2002).

In a classified session, George Tenet and other intelligence officials brief the Senate Intelligence Committee on the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq (see October 1, 2002). In his summary of the document, Tenet reportedly says that Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Niger. Though he mentions that there are some doubts about the reliability of the evidence, he does not provide any details. [Washington Post, 6/12/2003 ; ABC News, 6/16/2003] Tenet also says that the aluminum tubes sought by Iraq (see July 2001) were intended for its nuclear program, that the country has a fleet of mobile biological weapons labs, and that Iraq has developed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be armed with chemical or biological weapons for an attack against the US mainland. At one point during the session, a committee staff member slips Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) a note suggesting that the senator ask Tenet what “technically collected” evidence does the CIA have that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. Biden asks the question and Tenet replies, “None, Senator.” Everyone becomes silent. Biden, apparently annoyed by the answer, asks Tenet, “George, do you want me to clear the staff out of the room,” meaning that if the intelligence is so classified that it shouldn’t be shared with staffers he will ask them to leave. But Tenet says, “There’s no reason to.” When Tenet finishes his testimony, he leaves to attend his son’s basketball game. Other senators also leave. The next witnesses are Carl Ford, Jr., the State Department’s chief intelligence officer, and Rhys Williams, the chief intelligence officer in the Energy Department. Both men say they do not believe that the aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were intended for a nuclear program. But few senators are still in the room to hear these opinions. After the hearing, Peter Zimmerman, the committee’s scientific advisor, asks Robert Walpole the CIA’s national intelligence officer for nuclear weapons, to show him one of the tubes referred to by Tenet. Zimmerman looks at the sample Walpole brought and becomes immediately doubtful. He then grills Walpole on several technical details, who fails to provide any convincing answers. Zimmerman gets the impression that Walpole has little understanding of centrifuges. “I remember going home that night and practically putting my fist through the wall half a dozen times,” Zimmerman later recalls. “I was frustrated as I’ve ever been. I remember saying to my wife, ‘They’re going to war and there’s not a damn piece of evidence to substantiate it.’” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 117-119]

Photo of aluminum tubes intercepted by Western intelligence. [Source: CIA]The final, published report from British intelligence about Iraq’s WMD programs is released. Prepared by Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chairman John Scarlett and known as the “Scarlett dossier,” it contains much the same vagaries of language that the previous draft versions contained (see September 10-11, 2002 and September 16, 2002). Contradictory Claims about African Uranium - Chapter 3 tells the reader “what we know” about Iraqi WMD, including the statement that “Uranium has been sought from Africa.” Unfortunately, the first and second drafts’ language clearly indicated that British intelligence does not “know” anything about the uranium deal, but merely believes the claim to be true. Author Dennis Hans writes in 2003, “Properly interpreted, the list is evidence not of Iraq’s capabilities, actions, and intentions, but of a JIC policy of saying ‘we know’ when the JIC doesn’t know, so as to lend undeserved credibility to the claims.” The language of the final draft contradicts the claim of established fact; later in Chapter 3, the “compelling evidence” of earlier drafts has been downgraded to merely stating, “But there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” And in the executive summary, Scarlett writes, “As a result of the intelligence we judge” that, among other things, Iraq has “sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power programme that could require it.” The language is similar to that of the first draft, but a statement saying “we judge” is not the same as a statement saying “we know.” Hans concludes, “In any event, the published dossier, carefully reviewed by the best and brightest of the British intelligence and the Blair administration’s communications staff, presents three different interpretations: a ‘judgment’ in the executive summary, a statement of fact in Chapter 3, and a vague ‘there is intelligence’ claim in Chapter 3. Take your pick.” Prime Minister Tony Blair uses the dossier to flatly assert that “we now know the following”: that Iraq indeed tried to purchase uranium from Africa, “though we do not know whether he has been successful” (see September 24, 2002). [Common Dreams (.org), 8/26/2003; Hutton Inquiry, 1/28/2004] Later reporting will reveal that the main source for the dossier’s Africa-uranium allegation was in fact an Italian intelligence report (see Mid-October 2001) that was based on the same set of forged documents that formed the basis of the US allegations. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005; La Repubblica (Rome), 10/25/2005]'No Definitive Intelligence' on Aluminum Tube Allegations - In the section discussing Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons program, the dossier says there “is no definitive intelligence evidence” that the shipment of aluminum tubes intercepted by the CIA was intended for use in an Iraqi nuclear program. This assessment of the tubes contradicts the majority view at the CIA. [United Kingdom, 9/24/2002]'Echo Chamber,' 'Disinformation Campaign' - Former CIA official Milt Bearden will later say, “When you are playing a disinformation campaign, you’re like a conductor who can single out one note in the symphony and say, ‘Let the Brits have that.’” Author Craig Unger will note that by the time the “Scarlett dossier” is released, between the various US and British claims and the array of reports in the media, it seems as if the claims of Iraq trying to buy Nigerien uranium are coming from multiple sources, “when in fact there [is] merely an echo chamger of corroboration.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 259]Claim that Iraq Can Launch WMD within 45 Minutes - Perhaps the most infamous portion of the dossier is the claim that Iraq can launch weapons of mass destruction against chosen targets within 45 minutes of the order being given. That particular claim was not in the drafts of the dossier, and was apparently inserted by Blair administration officials seeking to bolster the case for war with Iraq. The Blair government will later deny that assertion. [Associated Press, 2/18/2008] After it is revealed early the following year that the US had relied on intelligence based on forged documents, the British will insist that they have additional evidence to support their claims (see March 7, 2003-July 7, 2003). [Sunday Times (London), 11/6/2005]

In a press conference, President Bush urges Congress to pass its resolution authorizing military force against Iraq (see September 19, 2002) before the midterm elections. “Congress must act now to pass a resolution which will hold Saddam Hussein to account for a decade of defiance,” he says. “I’m confident a lot of Democrats here in Washington, DC, will understand that Saddam [Hussein] is a true threat to America. And I look forward to working with them to get a strong resolution passed.” [White House, 9/24/2002] White House political adviser Karl Rove will later claim that the White House did not want the resolution to go up for debate until after the elections, a claim that is demonstrably untrue (see November 20, 2007).

Within “two hours and ten minutes” of the British dossier’s publication (see September 24, 2002), Iraqi government officials invite British journalists on a tour of the sites named in the document as suspected weapon sites. The journalists are permitted to choose which facilities, of those mentioned in the dossier, they want to visit. Al-Qa'qa complex - The first site they visit is the al-Qa’qa complex, located 30 miles south of Baghdad, which according to the British government’s paper has “been repaired” and is now “operational.” “Of particular concern are elements of the phosgene production plant,” states the dossier, which makes two claims. The first is that the substance, phosgene, is being produced at the facility and can be used “as a chemical agent or as a precursor for nerve agent.” The second claim is that the facility’s phosgene production plants had been “dismantled under UNSCOM supervision, but have since been rebuilt.” [United Kingdom, 9/24/2002; Independent, 9/25/2002] Both claims are disputed by the Iraqis. Director-General Sinan Rasim Said concedes that the plants produce phosgene as a byproduct of centralit, a stabilizer for gunpowder (which is not illegal), but denies that it can be used “as a chemical agent or as a precursor for nerve agent,” as alleged in the British document. He explains to reporters that phosgene can “not be extracted from the manufacturing equipment, let alone be used for making nerve agents.” To support his claims, he says that during the Gulf War, the US had never attempted to destroy the phosgene plants “because they knew we can’t make use of it.” Instead they had bombed the boiler room and the storage area, he says. Said also disputes the claim that UNSCOM had attempted to dismantle the facility’s phosgene production plants. There was no reason to, he explains, because the plant was not in violation of any laws. He tells reporters that if the British had simply requested the relevant documents from the UN they would have seen that they were wrong. [Independent, 9/25/2002] Amir al Sa’adi, a senior Iraqi weapons expert, offers his own opinion as to why the facility was referred to in the dossier. He suggests that Blair singled out the plant “because it could produce propellant powder for weapons from pistols to artillery guns for Iraqi air defenses.” [Independent, 9/25/2002] UNMOVIC weapons inspectors will visit the site in February 2003 and find nothing. [CNN, 2/3/2003; Financial Times, 2/14/2003; Guardian, 2/14/2003]Amariyah Sera - The second site they visit is Amariyah Sera, a facility which the British say UNSCOM inspectors had concluded “was used to store biological agents, seed stocks and conduct biological warfare associated genetic research prior to the Gulf War.” [United Kingdom, 9/24/2002; Independent, 9/25/2002] It is also claimed by Downing Street that the facility “has now expanded its storage capacity,” implying that the expansion is related to biological weapons. [United Kingdom, 9/24/2002; Independent, 9/25/2002] But the facility’s director, Karim Obeid, disputes the dossier’s claim that UNSCOM had earlier determined the plant was used for genetic research and storing biological agents. He tells the Independent of London: “They were coming here ever since the Gulf War until they left, and they have never accused us of any of those things in that time. All our work was done with their supervision.” He says the facility is being used “for testing typhoid fever.” Moreover, he adds that he is morally opposed to biological warfare “both as a scientist and a human being.” [Independent, 9/25/2002] Obeid also explains that the storage capacity of the facility has been increased, as the dossier states, but that the additional rooms are not being used in a way that violates international law. A reporter from the Independent, who visits the additional rooms, reports that one of the added areas is “a large mostly empty room” which the director says is being used “to store solutions for blood tests, imported from the Melat pharmaceutical company in France,” while a second area is “stacked with empty bottles of various brands of vaccine.” [Independent, 9/25/2002] Weapons inspectors will visit the site on December 15, 16, and 22 and find no evidence of biological weapons. [UN News Center, 12/15/2002; UN News Center, 12/16/2002; UN News Center, 12/22/2002; Financial Times, 2/14/2003; Guardian, 2/14/2003]

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) accuses Vice President Dick Cheney of politicizing the Iraq debate by urging an audience in Kansas to vote for a GOP congressional candidate because he supports President Bush on the issue (see September 10, 2002 and September 24, 2002). Dashcle says, “I must say that I was very chagrined that the vice president would go to a congressional district yesterday and make the assertion that somebody ought to vote for this particular Republican candidate because he was a war supporter and that he was bringing more support to the president than his opponent. If that doesn’t politicize this war, I don’t know what does.” Cheney was campaigning on behalf of Republican House candidate Adam Taff, running against incumbent Democrat Dennis Moore. Cheney told the audience of Taff supporters that the US “must not look the other way as threats gather against the American people” and that the “entire world knows beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein holds weapons of mass destruction in large quantities.… President Bush and I are grateful for the opportunity to serve our country. We thank you for your support—not just for our efforts, but for good candidates like Adam Taff who will be a fine partner for us in the important work ahead.” Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) says, “It goes to the question of what the goal is here. Is it regime change in Iraq or regime change in the Senate?… If this is really designed to be dragged out to get it closer to the election and to obscure every other issue including the limited success of our war against terrorism and the economy, then I don’t give it much hope.” [CNN, 9/25/2002]

After learning that the recent British dossier on Iraq (see October 7, 2002) included the allegation that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Niger, Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador who had visited Niger in February 2002 (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002) and concluded the allegations were false, contacts the CIA and advises the agency to inform the British about his trip. [Independent, 6/29/2003]

During a White House meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, George Bush makes the claim that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden work together. “They’re both risks, they’re both dangerous,” Bush tells reporters. “The danger is, is that they work in concert,” he says in response to a question from a Reuters reporter. “The difference, of course, is that al-Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al-Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn’t, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al-Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can’t distinguish between al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it’s a comparison that is - I can’t make because I can’t distinguish between the two, because they’re both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.” [Knight Ridder, 9/25/2002; Washington Post, 9/26/2002; US President, 9/30/2002; Center for Public Integrity, 1/23/2008] Later in the day, Bush’s comments are downplayed by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who says that Bush did not mean bin Laden and Hussein are working together, but rather that there is the danger that they could work together. He explains: “Clearly, al-Qaeda is operating inside Iraq. In the shadowy world of terrorism, sometimes there is no precise way to have definitive information until it is too late.” [Washington Post, 9/26/2002; White House, 9/25/2003] Bush fails to mention that the Defense Intelligence Agency has found no evidence of any such connections (see July 2002), or that eight days before his statement, the director of the CIA, George Tenet, told a Senate committee that no such connections can be shown to exist (see September 17, 2002). [Center for Public Integrity, 1/23/2008]

The Times of London uses the recently released intelligence “dossier” from British intelligence (see September 24, 2002) to report that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has sent agents into Africa to find uranium for Iraqi nuclear weapons. The Times does not inform its readers that many British journalists were shown evidence contradicting the British intelligence claims (see September 24, 2002). It focuses on the dossier’s claim that Iraqi “agents” have secretly visited several African countries in search of uranium. Thirteen African nations produce uranium to one extent or another. A Whitehall source tells The Times that while Hussein may have attempted to find African uranium, those alleged efforts were unsuccessful. “If Iraq had succeeded in buying uranium from Africa, the dossier would have said so,” the source says. The Times reports that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from, among other sources, the Democratic Republic of Congo, though at least part of that nation’s uranium mines are currently under the control of troops from Zimbabwe. The dossier does not specify any other countries that may have been contacted by Iraq. The Times also repeats the dossier’s claim that Iraq has biological and chemical weapons that can be launched against targets in as little as 45 minutes (see Late May 2003, August 16, 2003, December 7, 2003, January 27, 2004, and October 13, 2004), that Iraq is developing missiles with ranges of 600 miles (see January 9, 2003, January 16, 2003, February 27, 2003, March 7, 2003, and June 2004), and that Hussein may have given his son Qusay the power to order the use of those weapons. It also reports that the dossier specifically downplays suspected links between Iraq and radical Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda. Hussein has little sympathy for Islamist fundamentalists, The Times reports. [London Times, 9/25/2002]

US Congressmen David Bonior (D-MI) and Jim McDermott (D-WA) head for Baghdad with the intention of convincing Iraq to admit the weapons inspectors unfettered access. The day before, Bonior explained: “We want to avoid war, and we will make our case as strong as we can to not only the Iraqi leadership, but the leadership here in this country—that this war is not necessary. [War] will destabilize, we believe, many parts of the world. It will result in much loss of life, and to the extent that we can raise our concerns and have them heard, we’re anxious to do so.” CNN reported, “While in Iraq, the congressmen will also visit hospitals, food distribution sites and other similar locations to assess the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi citizens.” [CNN, 9/25/2002]

War on Iraq book cover. [Source: Public domain]The book War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know is published. It is written by William Rivers Pitt, a journalist, and Scott Ritter, a former US Marine and UN inspector in Iraq. In it, they write: “The case for war against Iraq has not been made. This is a fact. It is doubtful in the extreme that Saddam Hussein has retained any functional aspect of the chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons programs so thoroughly dismantled by the United Nations weapons inspectors who worked tirelessly in Iraq for seven years. This is also a fact. The idea that Hussein has connections to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists is laughable—he is a secular leader who has worked for years to crush fundamentalist Islam within Iraq, and if he were to give weapons of any kind to al-Qaeda, they would use those weapons on him first.… If Bush decides unilaterally to attack, he will be in violation of international law. If Bush does attack Iraq, he will precipitate the exact conflict of cultures between the West and Islam that Osama bin Laden was hoping for when his agents flew three planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. An attack on Iraq could bring about a wider world war America cannot afford, and that a vast majority of Americans do not desire.… The economic sanctions have rendered [Hussein’s] conventional weaponry impotent by denying him access to the spare parts that are essential to any functioning mechanized military. The UNSCOM inspectors destroyed, right to the ground, any and all capabilities he possessed to create weapons of mass destruction. He has no connections whatsoever to the terrorists who struck America on September 11th. Saddam Hussein is not capable of acting upon any of his desires, real or imagined. He does not have the horses.” [Pitt and Ritter, 2002, pp. 9-10]

A member of the National Security Council staff speaks with a CIA analyst about the allegation that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. The CIA analyst reportedly tells the NSC staff member that the claim should be removed from an upcoming speech (It is not known which speech this concerns, though it could be Bush’s speech in Cincinnati). The CIA analyst later tells a Senate investigative committee that the NSC staff member said removing the allegation would leave the British “flapping in the wind.” [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 59]

In a paper titled, “The Road to Economic Prosperity for a Post-Saddam Iraq,” which is a part of the study, “A Future of a Post-Saddam Iraq: A Blueprint for American Involvement,” authors Ariel Cohen and Gerald P. O’Driscoll argue for the implementation of neoliberal reforms including the privatization of Iraq’s major industries. The document says that poverty in Iraq is a result of Saddam Hussein’s mismanagement, namely Saddam’s decision to nationalize certain industries; Iraq’s war with Iran; the invasion of Kuwait; and Saddam’s refusal to comply with the requirements for the suspension of UN sanctions. The paper’s proposal for jumpstarting Iraq’s economy focuses on privatization of Iraq’s industries and several other neoliberal reforms. To complement this, the authors recommend using the “media and the educational system to explain the benefits of privatization and the changes to come in order to ensure broad public support.” The costs of reconstruction, they suggest, could be paid for with funds generated from the sale of Iraq’s oil. “Iraq’s vast oil reserves are more than ample to provide the funds needed to rebuild and boost economic growth,” the report says. [Observer, 11/3/2002; Cohen and O'Driscoll, 3/5/2003] But in order to generate this amount, Cohen and Driscoll write, the post-Saddam government would probably have to reconsider its membership in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). “Following the demise of Saddam Hussein, it is unlikely that the Saudi kingdom would transfer a fraction of its production quota under the [OPEC] regime to Iraq to compensate for those lost profits and facilitate its rebuilding,” the authors note. “Iraq will need to ensure cash flow for reconstruction regardless of OPEC supply limitations. Combined with the potential privatization of the oil industry, such measures could provide incentive for Iraq to leave the OPEC cartel down the road, which would have long term, positive implications for global oil supply.… An Iraq outside of OPEC would find available from its oil trade an ample cash flow for the country’s rehabilitation.” [Cohen and O'Driscoll, 3/5/2003] Cohen will later admit in an interview after the invasion of Iraq that his interest in Iraq withdrawing from OPEC was to destabilize Saudi Arabia (see Early 2005).

An unnamed Pentagon official tells USA Today that the hawks’ recent assertions regarding Iraq-al-Qaeda ties are “exaggeration[s]. The USA Today article, titled Experts Skeptical of Reports on Al-Qaeda-Baghdad Link, also says that “Other intelligence experts said some of the charges appeared to be based on old information and that there was still no ‘smoking gun’ connecting Iraq with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.” [USA Today, 9/26/2002]

Tom Daschle. [Source: Salon]Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle blasts the Bush administration for trying to use the debate over the Iraq war resolution for political purposes, and for smearing the patriotism of Democrats who question the need for the resolution. After reading through a number of statements by White House and Congressional Republicans, including one from President Bush who said Senate Democrats were “not interested in the security of the American people,” the usually conciliatory and soft-spoken Daschle retorts, “‘Not interested in the security of the American people’? You tell Senator [Daniel] Inouye he’s not interested in the security of the American people. You tell those who fought in Vietnam and in World War II they’re not interested in the security of the American people. That is outrageous. Outrageous. The president ought to apologize.” Inouye (D-HI) lost his arm while fighting in World War II. Daschle also cites a Republican pollster who says war as a political issue could tip the elections in favor of the Republicans, references Dick Cheney’s use of Iraq as an issue to promote the campaign of a GOP House candidate in Kansas (see September 25, 2002), and recalls White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card’s statement that “from a marketing point of view,” it makes sense to raise the issue of Iraq after Labor Day when lawmakers would be back from their August break (see September 6, 2002). White House press secretary Ari Fleischer counters that Daschle is taking Bush’s comment out of context, and is relying on erroneous or misleading press releases to make his charges. Fleischer advises to “take a deep breath,” “stop finger-pointing,” and join Bush in “protect[ing] our national security and our homeland defense.” Daschle responds to Fleischer’s comments by saying there is “no context” in which Bush or any other Republican can fairly question whether Senate Democrats are interested in national security. He says the White House’s explanation of Bush’s remarks are “not worth the paper they’re printed on.” Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) charges that Daschle and his fellow Democrats are unfairly attacking the president. “Who is the enemy here, the president of the United States or Saddam Hussein? [Daschle] needs to cool the rhetoric.” Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) retorts, “There is nothing more sobering than the decision to go to war. But the administration has turned the decision into a bumper-sticker election theme.” [CNN, 9/26/2002]

Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “The world had to recognize that the potential connection between terrorists and weapons of mass destruction moved terrorism to a new level of threat. In fact, that nexus became the overriding security concern of our nation. It still is and it will continue to be our overriding concern for some years to come.” [US Department of State, 9/26/2002] But Paul Anderson, spokesman for Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells reporters that Graham, who has access to highly classified reports, has seen no evidence that Iraq has ties to al-Qaeda. [USA Today, 9/26/2002]

A wanted poster for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted by the US military in Iraq. [Source: US Department of Defense]Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims the US government has “bulletproof” confirmation of ties between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda members, including “solid evidence” that al-Qaeda maintains a presence in Iraq. The allegation refers to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Palestinian who is the founder of al-Tawhid, an organization whose aim is to kill Jews and install an Islamic regime in Jordan (see December 2001-Mid-2002). Rumsfeld’s statement is based on intercepted telephone calls in which al-Zarqawi was overheard calling friends or relatives. But Knight Ridder Newspapers reports that, according to US intelligence officials, “The intercepts provide no evidence that the suspected terrorist was working with the Iraqi regime or that he was working on a terrorist operation while he was in Iraq.” [Knight Ridder, 10/7/2002] Two years later, Rumsfeld will back away from his allegation after it is disproven (see October 4, 2004).

During the daily press “gaggle,” Ari Fleischer acknowledges there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. A reporter asks if there is “still no evidence of a connection between Iraq and 9/11?” to which Fleischer responds, “That’s correct.” [White House, 9/26/2002]

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) delivers an impassioned speech at Johns Hopkins University raising questions about the upcoming war with Iraq: “I have come here today to express my view that America should not go to war against Iraq unless and until other reasonable alternatives are exhausted,” he says. Kennedy questions the rationale behind the administration’s claims of Iraqi perfidy: “I have heard no persuasive evidence that Saddam is on the threshold of acquiring the nuclear weapons he has sought for more than 20 years. And the administration has offered no persuasive evidence that Saddam would transfer chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda.” Kennedy warns of the possible calamitous aftereffects of a US invasion: “War with Iraq before a genuine attempt at inspection and disarmament, without genuine international support, could swell the ranks of al-Qaeda with sympathizers and trigger an escalation in terrorist acts.” Kennedy’s speech is virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Author and media commentator Eric Boehlert later says, “[The] Washington Post gave that speech one sentence. Thirty-six words. I calculated in 2002, the Washington Post probably published 1,000 articles and columns about Iraq. Probably one million words, in excess of one million words. And one of the most famous Democrats in the country raised questions about the war, the Washington Post set aside 36 words.” [CNN, 9/27/2002; CommonDreams, 9/30/2002; PBS, 4/25/2007]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq is “accurate and not debatable.” He also claims that President Bush has not yet made any decision on possible military action against Iraq. [American Forces Press Service, 9/27/2002]

The US and Britain present a jointly drafted UN resolution to Russia, China, and France that goes “far beyond anything previously agreed to by America’s partners on the UN Security Council.” The draft resolution seeks to authorize the use of military action against Iraq in the event that Saddam’s regime fails to comply with the new demands outlined in the draft resolution. The draft, which is not immediately made public, is reportedly three and a half single-space typed pages. [New York Times, 9/28/2002; Daily Telegraph, 9/29/2002]Iraq in Repeated Violation of US Resolutions - In its opening paragraph, the draft resolution summarizes how Iraq is in violation of numerous past United Nations resolutions. [New York Times, 9/28/2002; New York Times, 10/2/2002]7 Days to Open Country for Inspections - The draft resolution proposes giving Iraq seven days “to accept the resolution and declare all of its programs of weapons of mass destruction, and a further 23 days to open up the sites concerned and provide all documents to support the declaration.” [New York Times, 9/28/2002; New York Times, 10/2/2002]Inspectors Protected by US Forces - Weapons inspectors would operate out of bases inside Iraq, where they would be under the protection of UN troops. UN military forces or those of a “member state” (presumably the US or Britain), would enforce “no-fly” and “no-drive” zones along the roads on the way to and around alleged weapons sites to be visited by the inspectors. This would discourage Iraqis from removing anything before inspections. “Diplomats at the UN said there was no doubt that US troops would play a leading role in any such enforcement, allowing the Pentagon to deploy forces inside Iraq even before hostilities got under way,” reports the Guardian. [New York Times, 10/2/2002; Guardian, 10/3/2002Sources: Unnamed UN Diplomats]Open Skies - The US-British draft resolution includes provisions that would demand that Iraq permit the free and unrestricted landing of aircraft, including unmanned spy planes. [New York Times, 10/2/2002; Guardian, 10/3/2002]UN Can Remove Anyone for Interrogation - The UN inspections teams would be authorized to remove anyone it wishes to a location outside out of Iraq, along with his or her family, for interrogation. The stated reason for this would be to remove the person’s fear of possible Iraqi government reprisals. [New York Times, 10/2/2002; Guardian, 10/3/2002]Overrides Resolution 1154 - The draft resolution would override the provisions of UN Resolution 1154, requiring inspectors to notify Iraqi authorities prior to inspecting presidential sites and to perform the inspections in the presence of Iraqi diplomats. That provision applies to eight such sites in Iraq, spanning about 11.5 square miles. [New York Times, 9/28/2002; Associated Press, 9/30/2002; New York Times, 10/2/2002]Complete Openness or 'Material Breach' Allowing for Overthrow - The document stipulates that errors in a “currently accurate, full and complete declaration of all aspects” of its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction or “failure by Iraq at any time to comply and cooperate fully” would constitute “a further material breach… that authorizes member states to use all necessary means to restore international peace and security in the area,” which the New York Times notes is “a diplomatic euphemism for American and British military action to remove Mr. Hussein from power.” As one US official explains to the Times, “If we find anything in what they give us that is not true, that is the trigger. If they delay, obstruct or lie about anything they disclosed, then this will trigger action.” [New York Times, 9/28/2002; New York Times, 10/2/2002] The BBC reports that Russia, China, and France suspect “that the ultimatum is really designed to be turned down, leaving the way open for military operations during the December to February period.” [BBC, 9/30/2002]US Nationals On Inspection Teams - The draft resolution would also allow the permanent members of the UN Security Council to place their own nationals on the inspection teams. This is significant because the current inspections team, UNMOVIC, currently does not have any US officials in high positions. The reason for this is because the last UN inspections team, UNSCOM, had been sabotaged by US spies (see December 17, 1999). [London Times, 9/18/2002; BBC, 10/1/2002; New York Times, 10/2/2002]Iraqis, Allies Find Resolution Unacceptable - Iraq is infuriated by the draft resolution and calls it “unacceptable.” Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan states, “The position on the inspectors has been decided and any new measure intended to harm Iraq is unacceptable.” French President Jacques Chirac immediately expresses his opposition to the US-proposed draft resolution and seeks to form a coalition to prevent its passing. He explains that France favors the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq absent of any ultimatums because of “the seriousness of the decisions to be taken and the consequences.” He meets with Chinese premier Zhu Rongji and calls Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. Russia is also upset with the proposed draft resolution. “In its current form, this resolution cannot be implemented by its very nature,” a source tells Reuters. [New York Times, 9/28/2002; Daily Telegraph, 9/29/2002; Reuters, 9/29/2002; Sydney Morning Herald, 9/30/2002]

New York Times journalist David Sanger criticizes the White House’s use of a piece by 19th century American orator Daniel Webster to justify its argument that attacking Iraq is “anticipatory self-defense.” National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice cited Webster as a source of the idea that justifiable pre-emption should replace containment and deterrence as US policy. However, Sanger says that Rice is misrepresenting what Webster originally said. Webster used the term in 1837 to try to calm down Americans demanding another war with Britain, while simultaneously chastising the British for not exhausting diplomatic alternatives before burning a civilian US steamboat on the Niagara River after that steamboat fired cannons toward a British installation. Webster wrote that “striking first against an enemy was acceptable only when the necessity of that self-defense is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” Sanger writes of Rice’s statement: “It was only the latest example of how history, definitions and defense doctrines are being twisted to fit the Iraq debate. In its rush to convince Congress and the United Nations of the need to act quickly, the Bush administration has bandied about some very different concepts—pre-emption, preventive war and Ms. Rice’s ‘anticipatory self-defense’ (a phrase Webster never used)—as if they were the same thing. Experts in the field say they are not.” Author and foreign policy expert Michael Walzer of Princeton University says: “There’s a standard distinction here, and a very important one. Condoleezza Rice says we don’t have to wait to be attacked; that’s true. But you do have to wait until you are about to be attacked.” Harvard’s Graham Allison says a better example is one most Americans will not prefer to use: the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941. [New York Times, 9/28/2002]

In his weekly radio address, President Bush tells the nation: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more, and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al-Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.” Many Americans are shocked and frightened by Bush’s flat litany of assertions. What they do not know is that none of them are true. The CIA had reluctantly agreed to produce a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq less than three weeks before (see September 5, 2002); the result is an NIE packed with half-truths, exaggerations, and outright lies (see October 1, 2002). None of Bush’s statements are supported by hard intelligence, and all will later be disproven. [White House, 9/28/2002; Center for Public Integrity, 1/23/2008] In 2007, author Craig Unger will write that the conflict seems to have gotten personal with Bush. “There’s no doubt [Saddam Hussein’s] hatred is mainly directed against us,” Bush says during the address. “There’s no doubt he can’t stand us. After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 264]

During negotiations with the French over the wording of UN Resolution 1441 (see November 8, 2002), the US reportedly attempts to deceive the French with amateurish tricks. Vanity Fair magazine reports in April 2004: “According to a French diplomat, the US attempted various amateurish maneuvers. For example, they would have the French look at certain paragraphs that spoke to the issue of an automatic trigger; the French would insist on deletions, which the US would appear to accept; then the deletion would pop-up elsewhere in the text. ‘We didn’t like it in paragraph four,’ a French diplomat says, recalling the mind numbing dialogue. ‘We don’t like it in paragraph two, either.’” [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 286-288]

Map showing ranges of suspected Iraqi Scud missiles. [Source: CIA]Jane’s Foreign Report reveals that Israeli forces have been operating within Iraq. Citing Israeli sources, it reports that the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit was dispatched into Iraqi sovereign territory “to find and identify places used by, or likely to be used by, Iraqi Scud missile launchers.” The newsletter explains, “Our information is that neither Israel nor the United States have a clue about what, if anything, Saddam Hussein is hiding,” and that “It was this ignorance that persuaded the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to assign the Sayeret Matkal to a job that is sensitive and dangerous.” [Ha'aretz, 9/29/2002; Jerusalem Post, 9/29/2002; USA Today, 11/3/2002]

The CIA distributes a classified report on the aluminum tubes (see July 2001) concluding that Iraq probably intended to use the tubes as rotors in gas centrifuges. The report, titled “Iraq ‘s Hunt for Aluminum Tubes: Evidence of a Renewed Uranium Enrichment Program,” is the most detailed to date and will serve as the basis for the draft text of the majority position on the aluminum tubes in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002). It summarizes Iraq’s “efforts to hide the tube procurement attempts, the materials, high cost, tight tolerances, dimensions and the anodized coating of the tubes, and CIA’s assessment that the tubes ‘matched’ known centrifuge rotor dimensions,” according to a later Senate Intelligence report The CIA assessment also states that the US Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) does not believe it is likely that the tubes were intended for a conventional rocket program. [US Congress, 7/7/2004; New York Times, 10/3/2004] The two analysts responsible for the NGIC opinion, George Norris and Robert Campos, will receive job performance awards in 2002, 2003, and 2004 even though, according to a later investigation headed by former Senator Charles Robb (D-Va.) and Judge Laurence H. Silberman, their analysis “was clearly mistaken and should have been recognized as such at the time.”
[The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (aka 'Robb-Silberman Commission'), 3/31/2005; Washington Post, 5/28/2005] The CIA report also acknowledges that “some in the intelligence community” have argued that the tubes were likely intended to be used in the production of conventional rockets, not gas centrifuges. [New York Times, 10/3/2004]

The CIA flies the leader of Iraq’s Sufi movement (Sufism is a mystic tradition of Islam) to Washington to discuss his possible involvement in the Anabasis project. One night at Marrakesh, a popular Moroccan restaurant, the Sufi asks Luis and John Maguire, the two CIA operatives who are heading the project, if the US is certain that it will remove Saddam Hussein. “You’re not just going to come to Iraq, poke Saddam in the eye, and leave, are you?” Maguire assures him that the US is serious this time. The CIA agrees to pay him $1 million a month in exchange for information from high-level Iraqi officials. Soon after the agreement, CIA officers in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq begin receiving high-quality intelligence from Iraqi insiders, including information on the movements of Saddam Hussein. The sources include Iraqi military officials who are more loyal to the Sufi leader than to Hussein. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 157]

During a breakfast meeting with congressional leaders, President Bush says there is no point trying to talk to Saddam Hussein. “Do you want to know what the foreign policy of Iraq is to the United States?” he asks Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), according to someone who was present at the meeting. Then, thrusting his middle finger in the senator’s face, he says, “F_ck the United States! That’s what it is—that’s why we’re going to get him!” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 116-117]

Iraqi UAV prototype. [Source: CIA]Vice President Dick Cheney invites House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) to his private office in the Capitol building to discuss the administration’s intelligence on Iraq. Armey has been a silent skeptic of the administration’s case for war, and Cheney wants to win him over. As reporters David Corn and Michael Isikoff note in their book Hubris, Armey is “the number two Republican in the House. If he broke ranks, that would be a problem. So Cheney was dispatched to do the job himself.” But Armey is unconvinced with Cheney’s presentation, which includes pictures of the aluminum tubes, satellite images of alleged weapons sites, sketches of mobile weapons labs, and photos of UAVSs. The pictures could have been of anything, he later recalls. “It wasn’t very convincing. If I’d gotten the same briefing from President Clinton or Al Gore, I probably would have said, ‘Ah, bullsh_t.’ But you don’t do that with your own people.” In spite of his doubts, Armey does not challenge Cheney. Nor does he commit to support the resolution in Congress that will authorize the president to take military action against Iraq. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 124-125]

Iraqi and UN officials meet together with weapons inspectors to begin a two-day discussion on the resumption of weapons inspections in Iraq. “The Iraqis are being positive and businesslike and they are coming with a desire to reach an agreement,” says Muhammad ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei co-hosts the discussion with Hans Blix, the UN’s chief weapons inspector. This effort to reach an agreement is independent of, and in conflict with, the US and British plan to introduce a tougher UN resolution that would allow for the inspections to be backed by the threat of military force. The London Time notes, “Such an agreement could be bad news for the United States and Britain by further complicating their efforts to win UN approval for a tough new resolution explicitly threatening military action if Iraq does impede the inspectors.” [London Times, 10/1/2002]

The State Department’s propaganda office, closed in 1996, is reopened. Called the Counter-Disinformation/Misinformation Team, this office supposedly only aims its propaganda overseas to counter propaganda from other countries. [Associated Press, 3/10/2003]

Deutsche Bank publishes a report, titled Baghdad Bazaar Big Oil in Iraq, which analyses the large stakes that certain countries and oil companies have in the United State’s conflict with Iraq. It notes that the removal of Saddam Hussein would benefit US and British companies, while Russian, French, and Chinese companies would benefit from a peaceful outcome. Either way, companies from many different countries are positioning themselves for a role in Iraq’s post-conflict oil industry, the report says. [New York Times, 10/26/2002; Friends of the Earth, 1/26/2003]

Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), meets with the executives of “three US oil multinationals to negotiate the carve-up of Iraq’s massive oil reserves post-Saddam.” Also in attendance are “leading oilmen, exiled Iraqis, and lawyers.” The meeting, titled “Invading Iraq: dangers and opportunities for the energy sector,” meets “behind the closed doors of the Royal Institute of International Affairs” in London. Several weeks after the meeting one delegate will tell The Guardian that the whole day could have been summarized with, “Who gets the oil?” The meeting is confirmed by INC spokesman Zaab Sethna. [Observer, 11/3/2002; Guardian, 11/22/2002] Sethna says: “The oil people are naturally nervous. We’ve had discussions with them, but they’re not in the habit of talking about them.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 264]

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, says, “Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there’s a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 10/10/2002]

Washington Post journalist Thomas Ricks turns in a story he calls “Doubts.” It says that senior Pentagon officials are resigned to the fact that the US is going to invade Iraq, but are reluctant and worried that the risks are being underestimated. Most sources in the article are retired military officers or outside experts. Ricks has been reporting on national security issues for fifteen years, and used to be an editor on the topic for the Wall Street Journal. However, Post editor Matthew Vita kills the story and the newspaper never runs it. During this time, the vast majority of the newspaper’s coverage supports the push to war (see August 2002-March 19, 2003). [Washington Post, 8/12/2004]

The Iraqi Operations Group, headed by Luis (his full name has not been disclosed) and John Maguire, orders the CIA station chief in Annan Jordan to conduct a sabotage operation against a fleet of cars used by Iraqi officials in Jordan. They want the CIA in Annan to pour contaminants into the fuel tanks of the vehicles so as to destroy their the engines. But the station chief refuses, telling agency headquarters in a cable that he won’t participate in “juvenile college pranks.” Maguire is livid with anger. “We have a directive from the president of the United States to do this,” Maquire says. “So shut the f_ck up and do this! We’re not interested in your grousing as to whether or not this is a wise move or not. The president has made a decision!” The operation never takes place. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 160-161]

President Bush receives a one-page, highly classified “President’s Summary” of the US intelligence community’s new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002). The summary discusses the high-strength aluminum tubes that many administration and Pentagon officials believe are being used to help Iraq construct a nuclear weapon. Both the Energy Department (DOE) and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) believe the tubes are “intended for conventional weapons,” contradicting the view of other intelligence agencies, including the CIA and DIA. The public will not be told of Bush’s personal knowledge of the DOE and INR dissents until March 2006. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other senior officials will try to explain the administration’s stance on Iraq’s nuclear program by asserting that neither Bush, Vice President Cheney, nor Rice ever saw the dissents. For months, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell (see February 5, 2003), and others will cite the tubes as indisputable proof of an Iraqi nuclear program. US inspectors will discover, after the fall of the Iraqi regime, that the nuclear program had been dormant for over ten years, and the aluminum tubes used only for artillery shells. Inquiry - The Bush administration will refuse to release the summary to Congressional investigators who wish to know the basis for the Bush administration’s assertions about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. A senior official calls it the “one document which illustrates what the president knew and when he knew it.” It is likely that Bush never read the dissents in the report itself, as administration officials will confirm they do not believe Bush would have read the entire NIE, and it is likely that he never made it to the dissents, in a special text box positioned well away from the main text of the report. However, the one-page summary was written specifically for Bush, was handed to Bush by then-CIA director George Tenet, Bush read the summary in Tenet’s presence, and the two discussed the subject at length. Cheney was given virtually the same information as Bush concerning every aspect of the intelligence community’s findings on Iraq. Nevertheless, Bush and other officials (see July 11, 2003) will claim for months that they were unaware of the dissents. [National Journal, 3/2/2006]

Grant Aldonas, American undersecretary of commerce, tells a business forum that a war in Iraq “would open up this spigot on Iraqi oil, which certainly would have a profound effect in terms of the performance of the world economy for those countries that are manufacturers and oil consumers.” [MSNBC, 11/7/2002; Guardian, 1/26/2003]

George Will. [Source: Washington Policy Group]Conservative columnist George Will calls two anti-war House Democrats “American collaborators” working with Saddam Hussein, either implicitly or directly. Will singles out Representatives Jim McDermott (D-WA) and David Bonior (D-MI) for criticism because of their opposition to the impending Iraq invasion. Will compares the two to World War II propaganda maven William Joyce, the British citizen who earned the sobriquet “Lord Haw Haw” for his pro-Nazi diatribes on the radio, and goes on to observe that McDermott and Bonior provided a spectacle unseen by Americans “since Jane Fonda posed for photographers at a Hanoi anti-aircraft gun” during the Vietnam War. McDermott and Bonior became a target for Will’s wrath by saying they doubted the Bush administration’s veracity in its assertions that Iraq has large stashes of WMD, but believed Iraqi officials’ promises to allow UN inspectors free rein to look for such weapons caches. “I think you have to take the Iraqis on their value—at face value,” McDermott told reporters in recent days, but went on to say, “I think the president [Bush] would mislead the American people.” Leninist 'Useful Idiots' - After comparing the two to Joyce and Fonda, Will extends his comparison to Bolshevik Russia, writing: “McDermott and Bonior are two specimens of what Lenin, referring to Westerners who denied the existence of Lenin’s police-state terror, called ‘useful idiots.’” Will also adds UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in this last category, compares Annan with British “appeaser” Neville Chamberlain for good measure, and labels him “Saddam’s servant.” Slamming Democrats for Not Supporting War - Will saves the bulk of his ire for the accusations by McDermott and Bonior that Bush officials might be lying or misrepresenting the threat of Iraqi WMD, and adds former Vice President Al Gore to the mix. “McDermott’s accusation that the president—presumably with Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, and others as accomplices—would use deceit to satisfy his craving to send young Americans into an unnecessary war is a slander licensed six days earlier by Al Gore,” Will writes. Extending his comparisons to the Watergate era, Will adds, “With transparent Nixonian trickiness—being transparent, it tricks no one—Gore all but said the president is orchestrating war policy for political gain in November.” Will accuses Gore and other Democrats of what he calls “moral infantilism” because they voted to support the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (see October 31, 1998). Will returns to his complaints about the Democratic congressmen in his conclusion: “McDermott’s and Bonior’s espousal of Saddam’s line, and of Gore’s subtext (and Barbra Streisand’s libretto), signals the recrudescence of the dogmatic distrust of US power that virtually disqualified the Democratic Party from presidential politics for a generation. It gives the benefits of all doubts to America’s enemies and reduces policy debates to accusations about the motives of Americans who would project US power in the world. Conservative isolationism—America is too good for the world—is long dead. Liberal isolationism—the world is too good for America—is flourishing.” [Washington Post, 10/1/2002]

President Bush is asked whether he thinks the US economy is strong enough to withstand a war with Iraq. He responds, “Of course, I haven’t made up my mind we’re going to war with Iraq,” and then adds, “I think the US economy is strong…. we’re strong enough to handle the challenges ahead.”
[US President, 10/7/2002]

UNSCOM photo of an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle. [Source: CIA]The National Intelligence Council, a board of senior analysts that prepares reports on crucial national security issues, completes a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. The purpose of an NIE is to provide policy-makers with an intelligence assessment that includes all available information on a specific issue so they can make sound policy decisions. The formal document is supposed to be the result of a collaborative effort of the entire intelligence community and is supposed to be untainted by political interests. The decision to produce the assessment on Iraq followed criticisms that the administration had already made a decision to invade Iraq without having thoroughly reviewed all available intelligence on Iraq. Congress wanted the NIE completed prior to voting on a bill authorizing the president to use force against Iraq (see September 5, 2002). NIEs such as this usually take months to prepare, however this document took a mere three weeks. The person in charge of preparing the document was weapons expert Robert Walpole. According to the Independent of London, Walpole has a track record of tailoring his work to support the biases of his superiors. “In 1998, he had come up with an estimate of the missile capabilities of various rogue states that managed to sound considerably more alarming than a previous CIA estimate issued three years earlier,” the newspaper later reports. “On that occasion, he was acting at the behest of a congressional commission anxious to make the case for a missile defense system; the commission chairman was none other than Donald Rumsfeld….” [Independent, 11/3/2003; New York Times, 10/3/2004]Summary of NIE Conclusions - The NIE says there are potentially links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, but uses cautionary language and acknowledges that its sources—Iraqi defectors and captured al-Qaeda members—have provided conflicting reports. The sections dealing with weapons of mass destruction are also filled with caveats and nuanced statements. In the second paragraph of its “key judgment” section, the NIE states that US intelligence lacks “specific information” on Iraq’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And while the NIE says that Iraq probably has chemical and biological weapons, it also says that US intelligence analysts believe that Saddam Hussein would only launch an attack against the US if he felt a US invasion were inevitable. It also concludes that Saddam would only provide terrorists with chemical or biological agents for use against the United States as a last resort in order to “exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 10/1/2002; Washington Post, 6/22/2003; Agence France-Presse, 11/30/2003]Reconstituted nuclear weapons programs - According to the NIE, “most” of the US’ six intelligence agencies believe there is “compelling evidence that Saddam [Hussein] is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad’s nuclear weapons program.” The one agency that disagrees with this conclusion is the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which says in its dissenting opinion: “The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq may be doing so, but INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment. Lacking persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons programs, INR is unwilling to… project a timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see happening.” It is later learned that nuclear scientists in the Department of Energy’s in-house intelligence office were also opposed to the NIE’s conclusion and wanted to endorse the State’s alternative view. However, the person representing the DOE, Thomas Ryder, silenced them and inexplicably voted to support the position that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program (see Late September 2002). The DOE’s vote was seen as critical, since the department’s assessment was supposed to represent the views of the government’s nuclear experts. [Central Intelligence Agency, 10/1/2002; Washington Post, 7/19/2003; Knight Ridder, 2/10/2004; Knight Ridder, 2/10/2004]Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa - According to the NIE, Iraq is “vigorously trying” to obtain uranium and “reportedly” is working on a deal to purchase “up to 500 tons” of uranium from Niger. It reads: “A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of ‘pure uranium’ (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement. Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” But the alternative view—endorsed by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)—says that it is doubtful Iraq is trying to procure uranium from Africa. ”(T)he claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR’s assessment, highly dubious,” it reads. [Central Intelligence Agency, 10/1/2002; Washington Post, 7/19/2003]Iraqi attempts to obtain aluminum tubes - The NIE says that most “agencies believe that Saddam’s personal interest in and Iraq’s aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors—as well as Iraq’s attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools—provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad’s nuclear weapons program.” To support its analysis of the tubes, it includes a chart which compares the dimensions of the aluminum tubes sought by Iraq with those that would be needed for a “Zippe-type” centrifuge. The chart’s comparison of the tubes makes it appear that the tubes are similar. But the NIE neglects to say that the aluminum tubes are an exact match with those used in Iraq’s 81-millimeter rocket. The estimate also claims that the tubes are not suitable for rockets. The assertion ignores the fact that similar tubes are used in rockets from several countries, including the United States. [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 84; New York Times, 10/3/2004] It does note however that the 900 mm tubes ordered by Iraq would have to have been cut in half to make two 400 mm rotors, and that the tubes would have needed other modifications as well in order to be used in centrifuge rotors. [The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (aka 'Robb-Silberman Commission'), 3/31/2005] The NIE’s conclusion about the tubes is challenged by two US intelligence agencies, the DOE’s in house intelligence agency, and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. In its dissenting opinion, the DOE says, “It is well established in open sources that bare aluminum is resistant to UF6 and anodization is unnecessary for corrosion resistance, either for the aluminum rotors or for the thousands of feet of aluminum piping in a centrifuge facility. Instead, anodization would likely introduce uncertainties into the design that would need to be resolved before a centrifuge could be operated.” The DOE’s dissenting opinion—written mainly by nuclear physicist William Domke at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and nuclear physicist Jeffrey Bedell at the Los Alamos National Laboratory—also notes that anodization is a standard practice in missile construction for environmental protection. The Energy Department’s centrifuge physicists suggested more than a year before that the tubes were meant to serve as casings for conventional rockets (see May 9, 2001), but CIA analysts held fast to their theory. [Washington Post, 7/19/2003; USA Today, 7/31/2003; Washington Post, 10/26/2003; US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 59] Years later a DOE intelligence analyst will tell two journalists, “[The DOE’s nuclear scientists] are the most boring people. Their whole lives revolve around nuclear technology. They can talk about gas centrifuges until you want to jump out of a window. And maybe once every ten years or longer there comes along an important question about gas centrifuges. That’s when you should really listen to these guys. If they say an aluminum tube is not for a gas centrifuge, it’s like a fish talking about water.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 40] The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, similarly writes in its dissenting footnote: “In INR’s view Iraq’s efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the US Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose. INR considers it far more likely that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely the production of artillery rockets. The very large quantities being sought, the way the tubes were tested by the Iraqis, and the atypical lack of attention to operational security in the procurement efforts are among the factors, in addition to the DOE assessment, that lead INR to conclude that the tubes are not intended for use in Iraq’s nuclear weapon program.” [Washington Post, 7/19/2003; USA Today, 7/31/2003]Chemical and Biological Weapons - On the question of chemical and biological weapons, the NIE says: “We judge Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating BW agents and is capable of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers, and covert operatives.” But the document also highlights the belief that it is unlikely that Iraq has any intention to use these against the US. “… Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW [Chemical/Biological Weapons] against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington with a stronger case for making war.” Iraq would probably only use such weapons against the United States if it “feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 10/1/2002]Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - Citing defectors and exiles, the NIE states that Iraq possesses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which can be used to deploy biological and chemical weapons. But the document includes a dissenting opinion by the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center. The center, which controls most of the US military’s UAV fleet, says there is little evidence that Iraq’s drones are related to the country’s suspected biological weapons program. Current intelligence suggests that the drones are not capable of carrying much more than a camera and a video recorder. The Air Force believes that Iraq’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are for reconnaissance, like its counterparts in the US. The dissenting opinion reads: “… The Director, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, US Air Force, does not agree that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents. The small size of Iraq’s new UAV strongly suggests a primary role of reconnaissance, although CBW delivery is an inherent capability.” [Associated Press, 8/24/2003; Washington Post, 9/26/2003; Knight Ridder, 2/10/2004] Bob Boyd, director of the Air Force Intelligence Analysis Agency, will tell reporters in August 2003 that his department thought the allegation in the NIE “was a little odd,” noting that Air Force assessments “all along” had said that reconnaissance, not weapons delivery, was the purpose of Iraq’s drones. “Everything we discovered strengthened our conviction that the UAVs were to be used for reconnaissance,” he will explain. “What we were thinking was: Why would you purposefully design a vehicle to be an inefficient delivery means? Wouldn’t it make more sense that they were purposefully designing it to be a decent reconnaissance UAV?” [Associated Press, 8/24/2003; Washington Post, 9/26/2003] The NIE also says that Iraq is attempting to obtain commercially available route-planning software that contains topographic data of the United States. According to the NIE, this data could facilitate targeting of US sites. But Air Force analysts were not convinced by the argument, noting that this sort of information could easily be retrieved from the Internet and other highly accessible sources. “We saw nothing sinister about the inclusion of the US maps in route-planning software,” Boyd will tell reporters. [Washington Post, 9/26/2003] Analysts at the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency are said to back the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center’s position. [Associated Press, 8/24/2003]Appendices - Most of the caveats and dissents in the NIE are relegated to a variety of appendices at the end of the document. [Unger, 2007, pp. 266]Aftermath - After the completion of the National Intelligence Estimate, the Bush administration will continue to make allegations concerning Iraq’s weapons capabilities and ties to militant Islamic groups, but will include none of the qualifications and nuances that are present in the classified NIE. After excerpts from the classified version of the NIE are published in the press in July of 2003 (see 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003), administration officials will claim that neither Bush, Rice, nor other top officials were informed about the alternative views expressed by the DOE, INR, and the Air Force intelligence agency. They will also assert that the dissenting views did not significantly undermine the overall conclusion of the NIE that Iraq was continuing its banned weapons program despite UN resolutions. [Washington Post, 7/19/2003; New York Times, 7/19/2003; Washington Post, 7/27/2003] But this claim is later disputed in an article by the Washington Post, which reports: “One person who has worked with Rice describes as ‘inconceivable’ the claims that she was not more actively involved. Indeed, subsequent to the July 18 briefing, another senior administration official said Rice had been briefed immediately on the NIE—including the doubts about Iraq’s nuclear program—and had ‘skimmed’ the document. The official said that within a couple of weeks, Rice ‘read it all.’” [Washington Post, 7/27/2003] The official’s account, will in fact be confirmed by Rice herself, who reportedly tells Gwen Ifill at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Dallas on August 7, 2003: “I did read everything that the CIA produced for the president on weapons of mass destruction. I read the National Intelligence Estimate cover to cover a couple of times. I read the reports; I was briefed on the reports. This is—after 20 years, as somebody who has read a lot of intelligence reports—this is one of the strongest cases about weapons of mass destruction that I had ever read.” [Daily Howler, 8/11/2003]Conclusions 'Overstated' - George Bush is also provided with a summary of the NIE’s dissenting views. According to the Robb-Silberman report, released in early 2005, the president’s summary of the NIE notes that “INR and DOE believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapon uses.” [The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (aka 'Robb-Silberman Commission'), 3/31/2005] Additionally, senior CIA analyst Stuart Cohen, the acting chairman of the National Intelligence Council at this time, who helped write the document, will tell the Agence France-Presse, “Any reader would have had to read only as far as the second paragraph of the Key Judgments to know that as we said, ‘we lacked specific information on many key aspects of Iraq’s WMD program.’” The Key Judgments section is also where INR’s detailed dissent on the aluminum tubes allegation was located. [Agence France-Presse, 11/30/2003] A Senate Intelligence Committee investigation will determine in July 2004 that “most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community’s October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting.” [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 59] And in 2006, one of the report’s authors, CIA senior analyst Paul Pillar, will admit the NIE had been written with the intent of “strengthen[ing] the case of going to war with the American public.” [PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006]NIE 'Distorted' Due to Political Pressures, Author Claims - In 2007, author Craig Unger will write, “At the time, to virtually everyone in Congress, the NIE was still sacrosanct. It was still the last word in American intelligence. Yet it had been distorted thanks to political pressures from the neocons and the White House. If one took it seriously, the Niger documents were real. Curveball had credibility. And the aluminum tubes were part of Saddam’s nuclear program. Only one conclusion could be drawn: Saddam Hussein post an extraordinarily grave threat.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 266]

The CIA delivers the classified version of its 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq (see October 1, 2002) to Congress at 8 p.m. It is available for viewing by congresspersons under tight security—including armed guards—in the offices of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Only House and Senate intelligence committee members can read the material, if they come without staff members. [Washington Post, 6/22/2003; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 281; Unger, 2007, pp. 265] Despite an upcoming vote on whether or not to authorize a military attack on Iraq (see October 11, 2002), no more than a half-dozen or so members actually come to review the NIE. Peter Zimmerman, the scientific adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the first to look at the document, is stunned to see how severely the dissenting opinions of the Energy Department and the State Department undercut the conclusions that were so boldly stated in the NIE’s “Key Judgments” section. He later recalls: “Boy, there’s nothing in there. If anybody takes the time to actually read this, they can’t believe there actually are major WMD programs.” One of the lawmakers who does read the document is Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) (see October 4, 2002). Like Zimmerman, he is disturbed by the document’s “many nuances and outright dissents.” But he is unable to say anything about them in public because the NIE is classified. Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) says in a 2005 interview: “In fact, there were only six people in the Senate who did [read the NIE], and I was one of them. I’m sure Pat [Roberts (R-KS)] was another.” Roberts is the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Rockefeller is the vice chairman. [Fox News, 11/14/2005; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 133-134, 137] Rockefeller will later explain that such a visit is difficult for busy congresspersons. Besides, he will say, “it’s extremely dense reading.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 264]

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